


Changing with the season

by harryromper



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 25 Days of Harry and Draco 2020, Advent Calendar, Auror Harry Potter, Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Slow Burn, traditional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 36,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27830935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harryromper/pseuds/harryromper
Summary: Harry's determined the first time he hosts the extended Weasley clan for Christmas will be a success. The Grimmauld Place advent calendar has other ideas ... until Draco shows up to help.A 25 Days of Draco and Harry story.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 385
Kudos: 848
Collections: 25 Days of Draco and Harry 2020





	1. December 1st

**Author's Note:**

> I'm attempting [25 Days of Draco and Harry](https://slythindor100.tumblr.com/) the traditional way, one (previously unseen) prompt a day.
> 
> With thanks to inveigler81 and diligent-thunder for cheering me along.

“I thought maybe I could host Christmas this year,” Harry finds himself saying, before he can think better of it.

The silence around the Sunday lunch table at the Burrow stretches to fill the whole room.

Harry wishes he had Hermione’s childhood Time-Turner, so he could go back a few minutes and excuse himself to splash cold water on his face and come to his senses. 

The thing is, Harry never had the chance to enjoy Christmas before the Weasleys, and now every good memory he has of the festive season is inextricably bound up in the people around this table. And he’s watched, year after year, as Molly’s children have all taken their turns to try and pick up the impressive mantle she’s laid down. That first difficult holiday after the War, when Bill and Fleur had them all to Shell Cottage and everyone picked listlessly at their food and hung a photo of Fred on the tree. A couple of years later, when Angelina managed to rein in George’s attempt at serving a still-flaming turkey in the middle of lunch. Percy’s prim and overly formal effort, his nervous fiancée Audrey practically shaking as she handed out glasses of eggnog. Molly gave her a fierce hug and told her everything was perfect, despite the fact that the nog tasted like cough syrup and even Ron had to concede the potatoes were burnt beyond eating. 

Harry looked forward to it every year, and loved the way his adoptive family continued to grow. By the time Ron and Hermione first had everyone to their house in Ottery St Catchpole, there were enough children that Molly conceded defeat on Christmas sweaters for the adults and turned her attention to crocheted booties and tiny hats. Hosting became a sort of unspoken tradition — a sign that you’d got yourself sorted, and your house sorted, and were building a family of your own. Ron was flushed with pride when he welcomed everyone on Christmas Eve. It didn’t matter they’d all been there loads before. It was _Christmas_ , and Christmas was special.

And each year, Harry just sort of assumed eventually it would be his turn. It was true that being an Auror didn’t exactly make dating easy and being the Saviour of the Wizarding World complicated things further still. So, yes, he was a bit prone to picking up Muggle men who had no idea who he was, because that was just simpler. But it wasn’t as if he was _incapable_ of relationships with wizards. He’d lasted six months with Matthew, before even Harry had to agree with Hermione that he was just a bit dim. And things with Aditya would probably have worked out if he hadn’t had this slightly intense tendency to keep asking Harry what it was like for him during the War. Harry had liked Claude enough that he’d even told Molly that year he’d be bringing someone with him for Christmas, but when he actually invited Claude he laughed as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard: “Meeting your family? _Mais non_!” So, that was that.

It was also true that being an Auror meant that Harry’s living situation was still a bit, well, ramshackle. The house at Grimmauld Place had great bones, and Harry would never live anywhere else given its connections to Sirius. But his initial burst of enthusiasm for making it more habitable had run out long ago, during the long hours of Auror training when it was all he could do to drag his tired body home and collapse into bed. The bed, at least, was new. Luna and Ginny had insisted on vanishing every last bit of aged linen in the house during one working bee, leaving him with no choice but to traipse around John Lewis feeling a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of different kinds of duvets it was possible for a person to buy.

He’d kept a few bits and pieces of furniture. Some things, like the long kitchen table, for sentimental reasons. Others, simply because the thought of having to make decisions about replacing everything was more than he could bear. The Aurors had swept the place for Dark Magic and spirited off a number of suspicious-looking books and Black family heirlooms. Harry banished the rest up to the attic to sort on a rainy day. And it wasn’t as if London didn’t have plenty of those, but he always seemed to have a backlog of paperwork to catch up on, or a lead he needed to chase down. The house just hadn’t been a priority. Yet.

Which is clearly what Molly is thinking as she clears her throat delicately and asks, “Do you mean at Grimmauld Place, dear?”

This, of course, is Harry’s chance to back out and save face. He could immediately clarify that, no, _of course not_ , he’d like to host them all to Christmas lunch at a nice restaurant. Or that what he actually meant was that he’d like to _co-host_ with Ron and Hermione. Or, that he wants to spend some of his seemingly endless pile of galleons and take the whole family away for Christmas this year. Some alpine village in Europe maybe, where there’s proper snow instead of the grim icy sludge covering London.

Everyone is either staring at him, incredulous, or looking awkwardly at their plates. Everyone except Rose, who is grinning ear to ear and nodding vigorously. Rose is about the only person who genuinely loves coming to Harry’s house. She’s fascinated by the family tree tapestry and makes forts out of the endless piles of books in the library that he keeps meaning to donate to Hogwarts. She happily spends hours climbing the ancient oak that definitely only fits in the garden through magical means, and even though Harry has promised several times that they’ll build her a treehouse and hasn’t gotten around to it yet, she doesn’t seem to hold it against him. Rose is always thrilled that he’s never gotten the mowing charms working on the grass, because it’s almost as tall as she is. And if Rose thinks Harry can host family Christmas, then sod it, he will.

“Yes,” he announces, with a great deal more confidence than he feels. “It’s definitely my turn.”

Molly opens her mouth and closes it again. Ron looks like he’s about to say something but Hermione elbows him fiercely in the ribs and so he just reaches for the roast potatoes instead. 

“That sounds lovely, Harry,” Arthur says, patting him on the hand and immediately launching into a long discussion about Muggle smartphones that Harry’s confident is only about ten percent accurate.

After lunch, Ron and Hermione try to convince him to join them in going to the cinema but he begs off, claiming there’s a stack of case files he needs to update. 

“Are you sure about this Christmas thing, mate?” Ron asks, tugging his scarf across his face against the cold once they’ve apparated to the park near Grimmauld Place. “It was a bloody sight more work than I was expecting the year we did it.”

Hermione purses her lips at him, and Harry wonders how much of the work Ron actually did.

“It’ll be great, Harry,” she says encouragingly, squeezing his arm. “We’ll help.”

Harry hugs them both and promises he will call on them if needed. The paths in the park have been cleared, and as he walks back towards the house, looking at the lamps start to light against the winter afternoon gloom, Harry thinks that his impulsiveness will turn out fine. It’s just a meal after all, and he’s got a whole month to plan it. A tree. A few decorations. He’s pretty sure there’s even a box of them among all the stuff he’s stored in the attic. That seems like a sensible enough place to start.

He unwards the door to Grimmauld Place and takes the steps two at a time, feeling invigorated. He may not have a husband, kids, or a warm and welcoming family home. But he has money, a decrepit house-elf on the verge of retirement who is an _extremely_ average cook, and Christmas spirit. That has to count for something.

Sure enough, when he digs around among the crates and the dropsheet-covered furniture in one of the dustier, darker corners of the attic, he finds two large cardboard boxes with “XMAS” scrawled across the side. He casts to send them downstairs to the sitting room, figuring he can come up in the daylight and look for other things he might have missed. Sitting nestled in a ratty pile of tinsel inside the first box is a large wooden frame full of tiny, numbered wooden doors. An advent calendar, Harry realises, thinking back to the chocolate ones from Marks & Spencer that Dudley would have devoured before the third of the month, wailing until a replacement was purchased that then quickly suffered the same fate.

Harry lifts the frame out and props it against the coffee table. He opens a door at random and is a little disappointed to find nothing inside, before laughing at himself. Even if it were magically stocked, he’s not sure he’d want to eat whatever chocolate a hundred-year-old calendar produced. Still, it’s beautiful to look at: ornately carved around the edges with little glass windows for candles. He casts bluebell flames into them and it gives the whole thing a lovely festive glow.

It’s the first of December, he thinks, as he hangs the calendar on an empty wall beside the hearth and opens the door labelled “1”. Rather than being completely empty, the back wall of the little wooden space is decorated with a drawing of a wreath hanging on a door. Surprised, Harry opens a few others, but they’re all plain and unadorned as if for some reason it's unfinished. Confused, he leaves the first door standing open. He can buy some trinkets to hide in the other tiny cupboards for Rose and Hugo to find.

Underneath the mat of tinsel there are gothic-looking baubles and some glowering Christmas angels. Once again, the Black family traditions leave a little to be desired. Harry decides he’ll fare better buying his own. He flips the box closed and digs his case files out of his satchel. Usually paperwork is for the kitchen table, but the twinkling flames in the calendar frame are pretty and so he settles in right there on the creaking sofa. It’s going to be quite the month, he figures he might as well start to get in the mood.

* * *

Prompt One:


	2. December 2nd

The Monday briefing is crowded. The first of each month is when Robards brings all the teams together for an update, and the Aurors have to squeeze in alongside the Obliviators, the emergency mediwizards, and a handful of people who never introduced themselves with the same name twice and are clearly Unspeakables. Harry asked Padma once why they didn’t just magically expand the briefing room once a month, and got an explanation so long and so dull that just thinking about it still makes him yawn.

Harry wouldn’t mind the jostle except that the group briefing also brings—

“Curse Breaker Malfoy.” Robards stares pointedly at the clock in such a way that the message is clear it’s not exactly a welcome. 

Malfoy pays no attention as he looks around the packed room with thinly-veiled disdain, before levelling one pointed eyebrow at a junior Auror who immediately quakes and vacates his seat, allowing Malfoy to fold his impossibly long limbs into the regulation-issue Ministry chair.

The back of Harry’s neck feels warm. It’s probably just the crowd.

Malfoy came to work at the Ministry a year ago after, by all accounts, an absolutely stellar run on the continent. First class Curse Breaker at the Berlin Ministry. Orders of Merit from both the German wizarding _and_ Muggle governments. 

Harry doesn’t know all this because he _asked_ , of course. It’s just that people keep wanting to _tell_ him. 

“Really made something of himself,” Robards said, when he told Harry who he was hiring.

“Broke the case on Thorfinn Rowle single handedly,” confided Cho, when Malfoy first turned up at the Ministry.

“Some of the most beautiful magic I’ve ever seen,” stammered a wide-eyed trainee stumbling out of one of Malfoy’s Basic Curses workshops and running straight into Harry.

The problem is it’s not Malfoy’s _magic_ that Harry finds attractive.

There’s certainly no question that Malfoy’s magic is exquisite. More than once Harry’s found himself stuck behind a safety ward while Malfoy and his team have been called in to disarm or defuse a Dark object, and it’s hard to take your eyes off the way his wand dances or the gold threads of his spells slip in and unravel the most difficult of curses.

So that’s what Harry concentrates on, when the subject comes up. His overwhelming confidence in Malfoy’s technical expertise and what a credit he is to the Ministry. And not the other things. Like the way the short, fitted robes the Curse Breakers wear reveal just enough to be distracting and not nearly enough to give Harry things to dwell on later. The fact that at some point in the last decade Malfoy stopped gluing his hair to his head with Sleekeazy’s and now has a soft blond fringe that often falls in his eyes. That he’s never been anything but scrupulously professional and polite to Harry, but has also never said anything to him not strictly related to work.

“We could talk about other things,” Harry had mused to Ron one night, too many pints down to remember that he didn’t talk to his friends about Malfoy’s reappearance.

“What other things?”

“Quidditch scores,” he racked his sluggish brains trying to imagine a social conversation with Malfoy. “That show about the people stuck on the island with the polar bear. Where he got that sweater from with the really soft blue wool.”

Ron gave him a look. Harry changed the subject.

The briefing goes quickly. Robards is mostly focussed on the forthcoming festive season and the likelihood for drunken antics gone awry. Before Harry knows it, the room is emptying out and Malfoy is long gone.

Probably for the best, Harry thinks, given he’s got a missing witch to find in Shropshire, rumours of a dragon escaping a reserve near Cornwall, and Christmas to plan.

When Harry gets home that night it’s late and cold. Grimmauld Place feels damp and unwelcome, and he heads into the sitting room and casts at the fireplace to light it, opening his curry and a bottle of beer on the coffee table. 

After a few mouthfuls of korma, the fire suddenly sputters out. Harry digs out his wand and lights it again. He has to admit that even the presence of the cheery, twinkling advent calendar isn’t doing much to improve the room, so he drags over one of the boxes from the attic and rummages around in the mournful pile of creepy decorations. The best he can come up with is a stocky little vintage Santa with an enormous white beard inexplicably attached to a broom. Suddenly he realises he’s not exactly sure about the overlap of Muggle and wizarding Christmas traditions. Muggles certainly think Santa flies, but in a sleigh. Do wizards think he’s on a broom? Harry resolves to ask Rose the next time he sees her, and sets it beside the hearth. Perhaps, he reasons, if he just finds some more decorations each day, by the time Christmas rolls around the house will have transformed into somewhere a great deal more festive without too much effort. 

The fire goes out as soon as he sits down on the sofa. With a sigh, he lights it again, but as soon as he puts his wand down, it sputters and fizzes and the room goes dark. Exasperated, Harry really leans into the spell, putting an extra burst of magic behind it. The fire absolutely roars into life, flames leaping forward and singing his eyebrows. He watches in horror as the fluffy white beard of the broom-Santa goes up in flames, leaving nothing but a charred wooden corpse and some wire-framed glasses. The fire is gone as quickly as it had arrived. Harry gets up and peers at the smoking hearth. The Floo must be broken, or the chimney blocked. Another thing he’ll have to get sorted quickly. The last thing he needs is to be setting his family on fire on Christmas Eve.

The advent calendar, now the only bright spot in the room, flickers happily. Harry opens door two. He expects it to be empty and unpainted like the others, but the back of it shows a drawing of Christmas cards sitting along a mantlepiece. It makes Harry smile. At least one piece of this ludicrous Christmas commitment seems to be working. Now he just needs to get cracking on the rest.

* * *

Prompt Two:


	3. December 3rd

On Tuesday, it feels like absolutely nothing goes right.

Harry sleeps through his alarm, something he hasn’t done since training, which leaves him rushing out of the Floo at the Ministry still eating his toast and desperately trying to fasten his uniform with one hand. And even though Ron teases Harry to this day about his very first flawed Floo attempts, he’s a grown wizard now, and more than capable of emerging gracefully from a fireplace _ordinarily_. But not today apparently, when his spin becomes a stumble, and the stumble becomes a trip, and then he’s just looking in horror at the buttery remains of his toast crust pressed to Malfoy’s pristine robe.

Curse Breaker Sato, who had been trotting along beside Malfoy briefing him on his day, whispers a fervent, “ _Godric save him_ ,” and really Harry can’t help but agree.

“Fuck. I’m so sorry, Malfoy,” he rushes out, grabbing for the remains of his breakfast, and being stopped immediately by one pale manicured hand. Harry feels immediately mortified by the state of his own stress-bitten nails, which has the effect of distracting him from the flourish with which Malfoy produces his wand and vanishes both the food and the remaining greasy stain.

Harry steels himself for the inevitable dressing-down he’s about to receive. A venomous rant about proper time-keeping, and dining rooms being for dining, and toast being plebeian anyway, and whatever else Malfoy’s winding up to send his way. But instead, Malfoy just gives him a long unreadable stare, and then turns to Sato and asks her to continue. The pair of them walk away briskly, leaving Harry behind in a confused cloud of expensive-smelling cologne.

Padma is waiting for him in their office, leaning against his desk.

“There you are! Are you okay?”

Harry nods, waving off her concern. “What’s going on?”

“Obliviators need help in Knightsbridge. The Honeydukes factory apparently also makes some specialty Muggle sweets, and accidentally shipped boxes of Pepper Imps to Harrods.”

Harry shudders at the idea of trying to deal with a mass Obliviation in a crowded store during the holiday season, but it turns out to be even worse than he imagined. It takes a team of Harrods’ staff and Aurors just to empty out the store and keep it closed. Even assuring would-be shoppers that there’s a dangerous gas leak doesn’t seem to deter them. 

“I’ll be in and out in a jiffy,” one woman pleads. “If I don’t get the good turkeys today they’ll be all gone.”

Harry bolts the door and wards it just to be sure.

The Obliviators work as quickly as they can, treating shell-shocked shoppers and Harrods’ staff, and then guiding them through Fine Watches to the tea rooms for a cuppa. 

“Why are there so many security guards in a grocery section?” Harry asks, looking at one uniformed man still breathing out little puffs of fire, a terrified look on his face as if his mouth has betrayed him.

“Have you seen what they charge here for frozen peas?” Padma laughs.

Suddenly, there’s an almighty cracking sound beside Harry and a rain of broken glass. He spins, wand out to deal with whatever this new threat might be. But all he can see is one of the giant twelve-foot Christmas trees that line the Food Hall, and he watches in horror as the delicate gold and glass baubles that decorate it splinter and fall to the ground. 

“I didn’t … I didn’t touch it!” he yelps at Padma, who is looking at him like he’s just single-handedly destroyed the Christmas season. 

“Well, there’s no way we’ve time to Reparo that lot,” she says, with a disbelieving sigh, sweeping the broken pieces into a pile with her wand and vanishing them.

Harry backs away from the now largely-naked spruce, eyeing it with suspicion, but he only gets a few feet before there’s another unbelievably loud crash behind him. The decorations falling from this second tree seem to be made of some sort of delicate porcelain and shatter in absolutely all directions.

“ _Harry!_ ” Padma hisses, horrified. 

“I swear I wasn’t even close!” Harry insists, though he twitches at his transfigured peacoat all the same, wondering if somehow he’s grown a tail he’s not aware of. 

“I think, perhaps, we have this under control now,” Obliviator McMichael says, appearing immediately at Harry’s elbow. “I…uh, thank you for your assistance, Auror Potter. But we could do with creating fewer problems we need to clean up.”

Harry opens his mouth to protest, but receives a sharp poke in the ribs from his partner.

“We’ll leave you to it,” Padma says politely, deftly wanding the porcelain debris away as she grabs Harry’s wrist. 

“Honestly,” she sighs, once they’ve Apparated back to their department. “What an oaf you are.”

Harry’s indignant protests fall on deaf ears.

He’s still thinking about the disastrous trees when he knocks off that evening and heads to the garden centre in Camden to get one of his own. At least if he buys it at a Muggle store he can be relatively sure it won’t do some sort of enchanted dance and shake off all it’s decorations just to spite him. He picks out a lush green spruce and surreptitiously waves his wand to lighten it when the guy who sells it to him isn’t looking. 

“You sure you don’t want it delivered, mate?”

“No, honestly, I live around the corner.” Which isn’t exactly true of course, but around the corner he can hide the tree behind a pub and Apparate with it directly back to his sitting room.

At home Harry realises he hasn’t really given any thought to how to set the tree up, or keep it fresh, and by the time he manages to find a bucket and hit the tree with every charm he can think of to stop it from falling over, he’s exhausted and wishing he’d gone the magical route after all. Still, it looks impressive. Tall and stately, filling the room with the smell of a forest, but in a good way. Harry’s pretty proud of himself. So much so that he heads straight up to bed, and forgets about the advent calendar entirely.

* * *

Prompt Three:


	4. December 4th

Harry wakes feeling cold, even covered with an extra duvet he managed to drag out of the closet some time during the night. He’d woken in the dark with toes that had turned to ice cubes. He’d swear a window was open somewhere, but he checks and the house is sealed up tight. It’s as if Grimmauld Place has just fully let winter seep into the walls themselves. Kreacher enjoys his semi-retirement at Hogwarts during the week, returning only to make a perfunctory attempt at dusting on the weekends, so he’s not even around to ask. Harry figures he needs to make the effort to light the fireplaces in the various other, unused rooms more, but after Monday’s disaster, he probably needs some professional help with that.

He runs his shower extra hot to warm up a little, and wraps his fingers around a mug of coffee as he gathers his paperwork and searches for a thicker winter scarf. In the sitting room, the advent calendar seems particularly bright against the dim walls and towering spruce. Harry realises he didn’t open the door marked for yesterday and he finds it sticks a little in its frame. He gives it a particularly strong tug and it finally pops free. The picture inside is of a couple ice-skating on a little pond surrounded by trees. Harry supposes it’s meant to be festive, but honestly it looks a little sinister. The trees sort of lean in toward the skaters and the forest seems dark and threatening, unlike the previous scenes. Although when Harry glances back at doors one and two, both of the sketches are not quite as cheery as he remembers, either. The wreath seems to have spider webs on it, and a couple of the Christmas cards appear to have fallen over on the tiny, little mantle. He’s sure they didn’t look like that a couple of days ago, but it’s true that he opened them late in the day. Maybe his one shining bright spot of a festive decoration isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be after all. Harry sighs and resolves to go to ‘Wheezes on his lunch break and buy some new, cheerier things. George had been bragging at lunch on the weekend about now stocking candy canes as big as his arm.

Harry opens the fourth door on the calendar, and that, at least, has a convivial picture of mugs of hot chocolate steaming by a fire. A great deal warmer-looking than Harry feels at the moment. It seems as though the current calendar day is working just fine.

Harry’s morning passes in a blur. He and Padma are tasked with preparing a plan to protect some extremely valuable pieces of jewellery that will be put on display at a Christmas charity auction to raise money for those injured and orphaned in the War, and they spend a lot of time poring over blueprints for the venerable wizarding hotel in which the gala will be held. Before he knows it, Harry’s stomach gives an indelicate rumble, and a glance at the clock reveals it’s already after one. Padma rolls her eyes and they break for lunch.

Harry makes his way through the gathering crowds in Diagon Alley to ‘Wheezes. The store is jammed with pre-Christmas shoppers elbowing each other out of the way to get to the newly released gingerbread houses that assemble themselves. Little gingerbread men trot back and forth on a display shelf, lifting iced beams and walls into place, indifferent to the _oohs_ and _aahs_ of the witches and wizards below.

Harry waves at Maisie, who is holding fort at the till, and squeezes behind a towering stack of red and white striped cardboard boxes to the Staff Only door.

“Harry!” George greets him with a smile. “Just in time! We’ve been unpacking these all morning!” He tosses a box at Harry’s head and he’s forced to react quickly to catch it.

 _Have yourself a naughty little Christmas,_ the red and black box is emblazoned, with an R18 sticker in gold in the top corner. Harry flushes bright red. “I’m hosting the family,” he chides George, not even wanting to know what’s inside, and tosses the box back at him. George grins a wicked smile and adds it back to the stack beside him.

“Your loss, mate.”

“I’m just after some decorations for my tree, actually.” Harry glances around the overpacked storeroom. The promised candy canes are indeed the size of large golf umbrellas, and don’t seem like the sort of thing he’s after at all. 

George reaches up to a teetering pile on a nearby cabinet and tugs down a box. 

“Here you go. Haven’t even put these out in the store yet.”

The tree on the label is strung with brightly-coloured lights and looks warm and inviting. 

“There’s a list of spells inside. You can change the colours as much as you like. Have them match the music you’re playing even. Bloody brilliant.” 

“Will one be enough? The tree’s pretty big.”

George laughs, delighted. “Over a decade and I swear sometimes you still forget you're a wizard. The lights extend to fit the tree.”

Harry shrugs, embarrassed. The truth is he’s starting to realise he’s paid so little attention to how the people around him have made Christmas happen over the years. The last time he decorated a tree was when they’d hung a stupefied garden gnome on the one at the Burrow.

“How much do I owe you?”

“On the house for a quote,” George winks at him, and Harry knows that within a day there’ll be a sign over the display for the lights in the store with a mortifying picture of him smiling and pointing, saying _Endorsed by the Saviour of the Wizarding World_. 

When he gets home that night the house is still absolutely frigid, so he sends an owl to Kreacher asking him to clean the Floos on the weekend. Harry pours himself a generous finger of Firewhisky and opens the box of Christmas lights. Following the instructions on the spell card, he waves his wand tentatively and the string of tiny glass orbs sweeps smoothly out of the box and encircles the tree, gently weaving in and out of the branches and coming to rest.

Harry glances down at the card and casts the next spell. The lights flash and sparkle, changing from gold, to silver, to red. The whole effect is stunning. The tree looks as magnificent as the ones in Harrods had, before he’d walked past them. Harry sits back and takes a sip of his drink, feeling satisfied. 

But then the lights start to flash a little more rapidly, and the effect is slightly more disco than festive. He reaches for his wand and the spell card, casting again for a setting described as “Restful Noel”. Far from restful, the lights switch from disco to dangerously seizure-inducing, cycling through the full rainbow of possible colours at a pace that starts to give him a headache. Harry glances down at the card, figuring he must have made a mistake. He looks for the spell to turn the lights to a stable glow, and mutters the words at the tree. Now the orbs glow impossibly bright, like tiny searchlights burning his retinas and he’s forced to turn away. Something must be wrong with the set; it figures that George would give him an untested product. _Certainly wouldn’t be the first time_ , Harry thinks with a sigh. He looks for the spell to disable the lights and casts it over his shoulder, unable to look back at the fiercely glowing tree. 

There’s an uncomfortable whining noise, and then a succession of tiny bangs like gunshots. When Harry spins around, every single little orb has blown, hanging charred and smoking among the branches of his beautiful tree.

 _Terrific_ , he thinks glumly. _Back to square one._

What’s needed is a proper plan, Harry thinks, downing his whisky in one. His whole approach so far has been haphazard. He needs to attack Christmas the way he plans for a work operation. The way he’s planning for the security detail at the gala. He resolves that tomorrow he’ll visit Ron and Hermione and make a list of all the things he needs to do. Hermione loves lists, and then at least he’ll know where to start. 

Harry glances again at a small tendril of smoke snaking up from one of the burnt-out orbs and casts a quick fire-suppression spell over the whole thing to be safe. Enchanted decorations, he decides firmly, will be nowhere near the top of the list.

* * *

Prompt Four:


	5. December 5th

Harry sleeps through his alarm again, waking tangled and sweaty in a room that has inexplicably overheated during the night, even though there’s no fire in the hearth. He barely has time to fling himself into the shower and tug on his uniform before disappearing into the Floo. The burned out husks of the Christmas lights will have to stay where they are until he has time to take them back to George and warn him not to sell any more.

Padma’s eyebrows are at her hairline when he rushes into their office, trailing his scarf and his untied bootlaces behind him.

“What is going on with you? You’re _never_ this late.”

It’s a bit hard to describe that he’s being thwarted by a series of unconnected mishaps involving blocked Floos, broken decorations, and a sinister advent calendar, so Harry just shrugs. 

“Bad luck, I guess.”

“Well, we’re now at least twenty minutes late to meet the Curse Breakers we’re supposed to be assisting in Aberdeen,” she says with a sigh.

Bad luck about to get worse, Harry suspects.

Sure enough, it’s one specific Curse Breaker who is tapping his foot impatiently and glaring at his watch as Padma and Harry Apparate into the clearing alongside the abandoned house they’re supposed to be securing.

Malfoy closes his eyes briefly as if praying for strength, and then levels an even look at Harry, taking in everything from his clearly uncombed hair to his misbuttoned uniform jacket and still-untied bootlaces.

Harry has no doubt that there’s an absolute litany running through Malfoy’s mind of all the ways in which Harry is failing the Ministry’s high standards, the Aurors’ dress code, and the basic decency of all professional people, but unbelievably Malfoy holds his tongue.

“Auror Patil, Auror Potter,” he nods in greeting, his tone cool. “When you have a moment, perhaps you could set the security wards and prepare the scene for us to do our jobs.”

Harry takes a deep breath, crouches to tie his laces, and then draws his wand and gets to work.

The ritual of casting the standard security spells help him catch his breath and calm his mind. Which lasts about as long as it takes for him and Padma to step back and for Malfoy to start working. Because, honestly. Harry doesn’t understand how anyone is able to concentrate while Malfoy is casting. It’s a truly terrible combination of mellifluous pronunciation and beautiful spellwork. The absolute antithesis of the raw power Harry tends to throw through his wand. Malfoy is careful and precise. Every move is controlled and delicate, like a watchmaker polishing tiny little gears.

Harry’s dragged out his reverie by a sharp elbow in the ribs from Padma.

“Ow.”

She raises an eyebrow at him and tilts her head meaningfully toward Malfoy.

Harry has no idea what she’s about to imply but he’s also not about to stand around to find out.

“We’ll leave you to it,” he calls to Curse Breaker Sato, who gives a non-committal wave over her shoulder, and then he drags Padma away.

After work Harry Floos to The Red Lion, the pub that Ron has been running since the War. It had seemed like an unusual choice back then, spending the galleons that came with the Order of Merlin First Class on a bar, but Ron had been adamant. He loved George, but working with him at ‘Wheezes felt too much like trying to step into Fred’s shoes. And the idea of joining Harry to train as an Auror suddenly held no appeal. “Had enough of Dark wizards to last a lifetime.” Harry was pretty sure Hermione only agreed to the whole plan because she’d seen a way to offer jobs to newly-freed house-elves.

So Ron had bought the faded, cheery, little pub in Ottery St Catchpole, walking distance from the house he and Hermione were gradually renovating and expanding for their growing family. And Harry had to concede, it really suited him. There was a clutch of eccentric locals propping up the bar most nights and they always had a kind word for Harry and an enormous soft spot for Ron. 

“Bit unlucky,” Ron muses, topping off Harry’s pint and handing it to him. “We’ve hung loads of those lights around our place and none of them have exploded.”

Harry frowns. “Seem to be followed around by bad luck this week.”

He picks listlessly at a bag of crisps. “I was hoping to see Hermione. I need some help with making a plan for Christmas.”

Ron glances up at the clock. “She’ll be here any minute. Her department was having end of year drinks after work, but she was planning to beg off. I don’t think she’s that fond of them.”

Hermione had become one of the most successful policy makers in the Ministry of Magic, swooping from department to department and rousting out underperformers. She was responsible for a truly impressive slate of post-War legislation, enshrining a raft of creature rights, reforming Azkaban, and adjusting the inner workings of the Wizengamot. She had a fearsome reputation, but no one could question her achievements.

Sure enough, the door to the pub swings open a few minutes later and Hermione climbs on to the stool beside Harry.

“What an excruciating nightmare,” she complains, reaching for the gin Ron is already passing her. “I don’t know why people think that an end of year function reduces us all to children wanting to play party games and wear silly hats.”

Hermione is very much not a silly hat kind of person.

“I mean look at this.” She tugs a plastic packet out of her bag. “Someone bought me this in the Secret Santa.”

Harry takes the package, which appears to be a set of pillowcases embroidered with festive messages. “Brrrrrrrr,” reads one. “Wake me up when winter ends,” reads another. 

"It's like that Green Door song you like Harry,” Ron enthused, bursting into offkey song. “ _Wake me uuuup, when December eeeends._ " 

"Green _Day_ , Ron,” Hermione sighs. “And it's _September_ , not December!" 

Given the month he was having, December ending sounds entirely more appealing to Harry.

“I mean, what do I want with comedy pillows,” Hermione grouches, downing her drink and pushing the glass back to Ron. “Another one, please, before I need to go and get the kids from Molly’s.” She slides off the stool and heads to the toilets.

Ron picks up the pillowcases and grins at Harry. “Reckon she took personal offence at the idea she’d be asleep for a whole season. As if she could ever be that unproductive."

Harry laughs. “Rose will love them.”

When Hermione returns, Harry begins to tell them about the mess he’s in as far as Christmas is concerned, but it feels too much like conceding defeat. So instead, he focuses on the few positives. “I’ve bought an excellent tree. And I have an advent calendar.” So what if it’s a little spooky. It counts.

“Is that it?” Hermione asks, her voice skeptical.

“It’s only the fifth,” Harry insists. “I have time.”

Her pursed lips suggest otherwise, but she immediately produces parchment and quill, just as Harry hoped she would.

“Right. Here’s what you need to do.”

* * *

Prompt Five:


	6. December 6th

Harry has a renewed sense of purpose the following day. Sitting at the pub with Ron and Hermione the night before had felt a lot like their school days, with Hermione’s to-do list for Harry taking on truly frightening proportions that he and Ron were all too familiar with from the O.W.L. preparation schedules she used to make. They used to largely ignore those, but this time around, Harry’s grateful for the guidance. 

Before work he carefully pulls the string of broken lights from the branches of the tree. The calendar flickers at him from the wall and Harry realises he’s gotten behind again. It’s tougher to tug the fifth door open than he’s expecting and he almost stumbles when it finally comes free. The picture inside is of a Christmas bauble hanging on a branch. Harry can’t shake the sense that the image isn’t right though: the pine needles look wilted and like they’re starting to brown. More like a tree the week after Christmas than a couple of weeks before. Door six is much more promising: a beautifully decorated Yule log perched in a hearth. A Yule log is only one of the many, _many_ things on Hermione’s list. 

Harry gathers his scarf and his jacket and is about to step through the Floo when there’s a sudden angry flapping noise at the front door. Grimmauld Place is warded against unwanted mail—a hangover from the days when Harry’s admirers were a little too ardent—so he draws his wand carefully as he eyes the way the mail slot is starting to bulge and rattle. The noise starts to increase, and the tiny screws holding the metal surround of the mail slot pop free, as the flap folds back in on itself and an absolute torrent of envelopes and small packages begin to pour through the door. 

Harry, horrified, starts to cast wildly to bring the hurricane of deliveries under control, but they continue to fly around him, pinging off the stair bannisters and slapping against the floorboards. It’s like his Hogwarts letter all over again, but somehow a great deal more threatening. Postcards and tinsel-wrapped padded mailers keep shooting at his head and he’s forced to destroy them with hexes of increasing ferocity. With one final push of excess magic, he fires an Auror-strength sealing spell at the door and the deluge trickles to a halt. Stunned, Harry takes stock. Somehow, the barrage of mail that usually gets held at the owl centre and carefully sorted for him has managed to pile its way throughout his impenetrable home. There’s even a couple of Christmas cards that have flapped around and found a resting place on the mantlepiece. 

What a mess, Harry thinks, with a tired sigh. He’ll have to sort the lot when he gets home in case there’s something important among it, but he has no time to do it now, and so he rushes from the room, missing the glowing light emanating from the calendar’s second door. 

Harry leaves work early that afternoon to join Ron and Hermione and Andromeda at the Christmas pageant for Rose and Teddy’s school. The students are a mix of magical and Muggle-born getting ready for Hogwarts, and so the Christmas pageant is also a confusing mix of both traditions. The nativity scene is set in a garden, and has a collection of gnomes singing _All I want for Christmas is you_. Rose does an excellent job as the narrator, but Harry’s still struggling to grasp why Teddy—as the front half of a camel—is leading a troop of enchanted nutcracker tin soldiers across a desert in the second act.

Harry’s about to lean across Ron and ask Hermione if there’s a synopsis in her programme when he catches his breath. Sitting a row behind them on the other side of the hall is Draco Malfoy. 

Harry expected Malfoy out of uniform to wear poncy ornate robes like the kind his dreadful father used to flounce around in. It’s terrible to discover that instead Malfoy looks like a fashion model who has wandered off his billboard and gotten lost, winding up sitting straight-backed and serious beside his Aunt watching a primary school play. Harry’s so distracted by Malfoy’s soft dark scarf and thick green sweater that he misses whatever denouement the meandering advent tale has, and is forced to join everyone around him bursting into overenthusiastic applause. When he glances back from the stage, Malfoy has gone.

“You were absolutely brilliant,” Harry assures Rose and turns to Teddy. “And you, there’s never been a more accurate portrayal of a camel!”

“I’m a _dromedary_ , Harry,” Teddy groans, as if this should have been obvious, but his hair changes colour to match the pink of his cheeks at the praise.

They all go back to Andromeda’s house for pizza, and an enthusiastic retelling of every aspect of the play as if they haven’t all just sat through it. Harry bounces Hugo on his knee and recounts his mad encounter with the post that morning to Hermione.

“There’s no way that should have happened,” she says with a frown. “I designed those mail wards myself. I’ll come by tomorrow and take a look at them.”

“Uncle Harry’s? Can I come?” Rose’s ears prick up at the mention of Grimmauld Place.

“Only if you promise to help me decorate the Christmas tree,” Harry offers seriously, as if she might turn him down. It’s true that he doesn’t actually _have_ any suitable decorations yet, but that feels like a problem he can solve with a quick trip to a Muggle store in the morning. Rose is absolutely delighted, assuring Harry that not only can she help but she’s also actually the best at Christmas tree decorating, a fact that he is definitely not about to dispute.

“Did you see Malfoy was there today?” Harry asks Hermione, as Rose pirouettes away to brag to Teddy about getting to decorate Harry’s tree.

Hermione lifts Hugo off Harry’s lap as he starts to grizzle, giving him a slice of peach to quiet him. She looks at Harry quizzically, as if she’s waiting for the rest of the question.

“Just surprised is all,” Harry shrugs defensively. “Didn’t seem like his sort of thing.”

Hermione arches an eyebrow and gives him a wry smile. “What, supporting his cousin? Being around children? Christmas in general?”

Harry feels his face heat. 

“I thought you two got on okay at work?” she asks, now curious. It’s too complicated for Harry to try and explain, that yes, they get on just fine, for two complete strangers who have absolutely no history. But their scrupulously professional interactions are rather a lot weirder for two people who’ve more or less tried to kill each other in the past. Particularly when one of them—confusingly—would nowadays very much like to shag the other, even though he appears to show no interest in that at all.

Harry’s grateful when Ron appears at his shoulder saying it’s time to take the kids home and saves him from Hermione's perceptive stare.

“We’ll be by after lunch, to check on those wards,” Hermione says, gathering her bag and hitching Hugo onto her hip. She kisses Harry briefly on the cheek. “Try not to set fire to anything or succumb to a horde of malevolent mail before then.”

Ordinarily, a safe bet. But this week, Harry thinks, he’s not all that sure.

* * *

Prompt Six:


	7. December 7th

Saturday morning Harry wakes to the sound of Kreacher clattering around in the attic and hopes that’s a positive sign about the Floos. He pulls on Muggle clothes, retrieves Hermione’s list, and heads straight to the closest Woolworths. The strings of lights on sale there might require electricity and not respond to spells, but they’re also not going to set fire to his tree and they cost less than ten pounds.

He pushes a trolley through the crowded aisles, filling it with boxes of lights and baubles, loops of tinsel and gold beads. Candles and napkin rings for the table. A berry and pinecone wreath for the front door. He’s pretty sure the Grimmauld Place crockery will work just fine and he doesn’t need something called a table runner, or lanterns shaped like Santa, or a festive incense. But he does throw in some cookie cutters in Christmas shapes, and a gingerbread house kit that promises to be “easy to assemble".

Kreacher is waiting for him when he gets home, twitching at the curtains like some sort of nosy neighbour. 

“Kreacher has sorted the mail Master left all over the floor. And the Floos is clean,” he grouches without preamble, and doesn’t offer to help Harry with his armloads of shopping bags. 

“Thank you,” Harry sighs, offloading his purchases onto the long kitchen table.

“No,” the wizened little creature shakes his head and sniffs imperiously. “Floos is _already_ clean. Kreacher is not sure why Master seemed to think he had not been keeping on top of his chores.”

“Oh, I was having trouble with the fire the other night. I assumed that’s what it was.” Harry fills the kettle, and when he turns back he finds Kreacher poking around in his shopping. 

“Muggle baubles. Plastic Muggle trinkets,” he mutters under his breath. “Perfectly good Black family heirlooms sitting gathering dust.”

“Hey,” Harry protests, snatching the bag away from him. “I hung up the advent calendar.”

Kreacher seems to have lost interest and is waddling out of the kitchen. “Hanging it up is not being any use,” he grouches cryptically as he disappears.

It doesn’t seem like the right time to for Harry to broach the fact that he’s planning to invite a dozen people over for Christmas, so he lets him go.

Before long the kitchen Floo roars into life and Hermione and Rose come through. Hermione inspects Harry’s haul with a great deal more approval than Kreacher, and accepts a cup of tea, while Rose fairly bounces on her toes waiting to be let loose on the tree. 

“You can do the lower branches,” Harry concedes, handing her the boxes of baubles. “But wait for me for anything you can’t reach.”

Hermione turns over the packet of cookie cutters and gives Harry a look. “Ambitious,” she smirks. “You never struck me as much of a baker.” He takes them off her and shoves them in the pantry. 

“There’s a first time for everything. Including hosting Christmas.”

That seems to take the wind out of her sails a little, and she tilts her head as she considers him. “You don’t have to do this on your own, you know. We can come and help with everything.”

There’s a very small part of him that wants to accept, knowing she’ll take charge and he’ll just have to do what he’s told and the whole thing will run like clockwork. But the much larger part of him needs to do this, to prove to himself that he can, as much as anything.

“It’s just Christmas,” he insists, with a smile. “Hardly up there with conquering a Dark Lord.”

Hermione laughs. She gets out her wand and a small grimoire and heads upstairs to start inspecting the wards. Harry goes to find Rose.

The bottom half of the Christmas tree is absolutely laden with decorations, strangled with tinsel, and dripping with fake icicles. The top half is completely bare, and when Harry looks around he realises there may not be much left to decorate it with. 

“We may need to rearrange some things,” he suggests gently, pushing an armchair out of the way, and transfiguring the coffee table into a squat, sturdy-looking little step ladder.

“Harry, why are only some of the doors on your calendar working?” Rose asks, as she clambers up the steps, dragging a long tail of tinsel behind her. 

“What do you mean?” He glances over at the calendar. Sure enough, there’s a glowing light coming from the second open door, and as he watches, a warm glow begins to match it from the fifth.

“I think it’s broken, Rosie,” he says. 

“Can I open today’s door?”

Harry nods, and Rose promptly descends and begins to drag her little temporary step ladder across to the other wall, making a dreadful noise on the floorboards that Harry is sure will send Kreacher into conniptions. He twitches his wand to speed things up.

Rose opens the seventh door with ease. The picture is of candles lit in the centre of a dinner table, surrounded by a decorative twist of holly.

“Pretty,” Rose enthuses, and then turns to peer intently into each of the other open doors. “Why haven’t you done the other ones?”

“Opened them, you mean? It’s not those days yet.”

“No, these ones,” Rose points to the other unlit spaces. Harry is still confused and says as much.

“You’ve done the cards,” Rose explains patiently, pointing to where Kreacher has chosen to leave the Christmas cards above the fireplace that had forced their way in the previous morning. “And I’ve done the decorations on the tree. But, you haven’t done the others. Day one was a wreath, Harry! That was a week ago!”

Harry stares at the carved wooden calendar as if seeing it for the first time. Rose is right, of course. The happily glowing squares are the ones that have been fulfilled in the house so far. But surely that’s a coincidence.

“I bought a wreath today,” he finds himself saying, still staring puzzled at the calendar. Rose is already down off her steps and gone before he’s finished the sentence. She’s back a few minutes later, carrying the wreath and insisting he follow her to the front door.

Harry digs around in the drawer of his desk and finds a bent paperclip he can transfigure into a hook. He casts to fasten it, and boosts Rose up a little, arms around her waist, so she can hang the wreath in pride of place. The green leaves look glossy and festive against the blue paint of the door. Harry supposes hardly anyone will see it, given his house isn’t visible to the neighbours and his friends all arrive by Floo, but he’ll know it’s there and it makes him unaccountably happy.

“Come on,” Rose calls, wriggling down and dragging at his hand. “Let’s check.”

Sure enough, the little wreath depicted behind door one is suddenly bright and spider-web free, lit magically from inside. Harry supposes it’s sort of charming. Not so much the dark, spooky air of the uncompleted tasks, but the idea of giving a household something seasonal to do each day. “You’re very clever, Rose,” he says, tugging gently on one of her braids. “I’d never have worked it out on my own.”

“What other ones can we do?”

Harry glances at the darkened doors. “Well, no skating today, but we can definitely manage hot chocolate.”

They’re enjoying mugs of it when Hermione returns to the kitchen, a puzzled frown on her face. She listens attentively while Rose regales her with the story of her great deductive triumph, but declines a hot chocolate of her own. 

“I really don’t understand it, Harry,” she says, once Rose has returned to perfecting her decorations. “The wards are all absolutely fine, there’s no reason the post should have gotten through. Did anything happen today?”

Harry shakes his head. “It must have been a one-off.” Neither of them are entirely happy with that explanation, or rather the lack of one, but Harry promises that if there’s any further security breaches he’ll get an Auror team to reset everything top to bottom.

Only when every single new decoration is hung can Hermione finally convince Rose to put her coat back on so they can go and look after Hugo and let Ron get to the pub.

Harry’s absolutely delighted with the whole effect. The tree looks magnificent. Now he just has to go find his house-elf and break the news.

* * *

Prompt Seven:


	8. December 8th

Kreacher decides to continue making his general displeasure with Harry known by waking him at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning. A truly horrific amount of noise starts coming from the attic, and Harry’s forced to go up there to check that it’s really just his house-elf and no one is fighting a duel, or trying to force their way into his house behind a barrage of unwanted mail.

Kreacher seems to be rearranging every single item in the dark and dusty space, his ears flapping in frustration as he shoves a large box out of the way and leans so far into the next that he almost disappears inside. All the while he keeps up a steady stream of muttering: “Two weeks’ notice. Expects Kreacher to be ready in that time. House full of _Weasleys_ —”

Harry thinks about coughing to announce his arrival, but there’s another loud thump as a pile of folded linen flies out of the box and hits the floorboards in front of him and he decides to escape without enduring any further lectures.

Downstairs, Rose’s efforts with the tree immediately lift his mood. Harry glances at the calendar. Yesterday’s picture of candles looks a little miserable. The wax has melted into ugly lumps, and the flames are a dying flicker. He should probably light a real candle at dinner tonight, just to cheer it up. The eighth door has Christmas biscuits behind it, in the shapes of trees and candy canes, iced in bright colours. Well, he has the cutters for it, Hermione’s snarking about his baking skills be damned. Maybe next weekend Rosie can help him with those. 

Harry’s not due for brunch with Luna and Ginny until one, a constant source of tension between them. “Brunch literally means _between_ breakfast and lunch,” he routinely whines at Gin. “It can’t happen _after_ lunchtime.” The last time they’d had this disagreement she’d just rolled her eyes and questioned how gay he really was. He’s plenty gay. He just also gets hungry.

He decides that waiting around the house listening to Kreacher crash about and complain is no way to spend the morning, so he heads to Luna’s store to bother her until she agrees to eat earlier than the afternoon.

Luna’s store is an absolute mystery to Harry. It glows like a calm oasis in the section of Diagon rebuilt after the War. Where the original buildings all have cramped lead-light windows reflecting the age in which they were built, Luna’s store is fronted with enormous plate glass, and the sign over the door reads “loop” in modern lettering. Inside, it always smells like fresh sheets, and the wide shelves have a sparse array of extremely expensive things that Harry can never understand. Tiny potion bottles promising Nargle-free sleep. Bunches of dried flowers and sage tied together with poems. Luna’s signature radish earrings. 

Her meteoric rise as a “wellness witch” and quasi-celebrity wasn’t something any of them had predicted, least of all Luna. “My best-selling range this year is riverstones,” she confided to Harry a couple of Christmases ago. “I mean, they’re very nice stones, Harry. But it does seem that people are prepared to pay a little too much when they could go and get them out of the river themselves.”

It doesn’t make any sense to Harry either, but the wealthy witches drifting around Luna’s store swooning over her selection of Plimpy Home Pedicures seem to be happy, so who is he to judge?

“You’re early,” Luna says, kissing him on both cheeks. “Ginny hasn’t even finished practice yet.”

“Yes, but at least if I’m here, we can head straight to the restaurant,” he reasons. “Besides, my house is a bit of a warzone.”

Luna lets him snack on a pile of something called “no-bake bliss balls” that probably retail for more than he makes in a day, while he tells her about his grand plans to host Christmas, Kreacher’s disbelief at being pressed into service in such an outrageous way, and the run of extremely bad luck he’s been having. 

“I have a serum for that,” Luna muses, tying a silk ribbon around a bunch of dried twigs, but Ginny arrives before Harry has to try curing his bad fortune with some sort of glittery oil.

The three of them head to a crowded café in Islington. Ginny insists on Muggle restaurants for brunch because to her mind, no witch or wizard has ever made a decent eggs benedict. It’s truly the last place Harry expects to see Draco Malfoy.

“What is it?” Luna asks, and Harry realises he’s stopped mid-sentence and is a bit frozen by the sight of Malfoy in _jeans_ of all things. He’s at a table in the back with Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini and honestly, Harry could be forgiven for never wanting to know that Malfoy looked like that when he laughed. Carefree and happy in a way Harry’s pretty sure he’s _never_ seen him.

Harry takes too long to respond and so of course, both Luna and Ginny are then craning their necks to see what’s caught his attention. Or rather, who.

“Still, Harry?” Ginny laughs, and Harry feels his face flush red.

“I have a serum for that too,” Luna assures him with a pat on the hand.

He changes the subject immediately, and when their eggs arrive they’re all sufficiently distracted that he manages not to glance at Malfoy every other moment. It’s good to catch up, and one mimosa becomes several, and before he realises it, Malfoy and his friends have left and it’s late afternoon and already dark outside.

“This is the one part of winter I hate,” Ginny complains as they head out onto the street. “Give me the long summer evenings when we can still be flying at ten.”

“Look!” Luna points across the street to where a crowd is gathering on Islington Green. “We’re in time for the lights!”

Sure enough, under a banner reading “Angel’s Glow”, a small clutch of Muggle dignitaries are preparing to light the annual Christmas display. A choir of children from a local school give a heartfelt but slightly offkey rendition of “Joy to the World”, and a large switch is thrown. All around them, the trees light up, wrapped in hundreds and hundreds of tiny bulbs. Overhead, strung across Upper Street, are much larger, more intricate displays. An angel, wings spread wide, by the Angel tube station. Three large bells further along. And just above Harry, an enormous reindeer pulling a sleigh. 

“It’s so beautiful,” Luna swoons.

“That one looks like your Patronus,” Ginny says, pointing over their heads. 

Harry takes a step back to appreciate it more fully, and with a sinking feeling of dread he hears a sort of snap, and a fizzle, and a groan from the crowd. The line of trees behind Harry have all had their lights go out. He spins around guiltily, but he’s a good couple of feet from the nearest branch. It can’t have been him.

“Oh that’s disappointing,” Luna sighs. “I wonder what went wrong.”

There’s another little pop, and more of a hiss this time, and the entire beautiful stag above them sputters into darkness. 

“Oh no!” Luna cries.

“Bit of a shambles,” Ginny chuckles.

“I really think we should go,” Harry insists. It must be a coincidence. It has to be. But there’s no reason for him to continue to try his increasingly poor luck. Maybe, he thinks as they push through the disenchanted crowds and head back toward Grimmauld Place, he should stock up on Luna’s remedies after all.

* * *

Prompt Eight:


	9. December 9th

It’s not just that Harry’s late on Monday, it’s that he also manages to brush past the Christmas tree in his rush to find his boots and manages to somehow get the glitter from some errant decoration all over his jacket. Absolutely no amount of brushing or wiping or cleaning spells seem to shift it, and the more he tries, the later it gets. He gives up, but still finds himself arriving for the weekly briefing just as it’s breaking up. Padma drags him down the corridor to their office before he has a chance to make his apologies to Robards. 

“You can’t talk to our boss looking like someone dragged you through a disco ball backwards,” she hisses under her breath. “Did you stay out all night clubbing?!”

“No!” Harry protests, holding his arms up while she waves her wand at him, but even she only seems to manage to shift the glitter around a bit.

“Merlin, what is this? You need to put on another jacket.”

Which would be all well and good but Harry’s other uniform is at the cleaners. 

“We could go there on the way,” he suggests, but one glance at the clock and Padma assures him they definitely do not have time. 

“We’re due at the Hotel Langley immediately. It'll have to wait.”

Which is how Harry finds himself trying to carry on a sensible conversation with the Head of Hotel Security, Marvin Masterson, while the hunched little man’s eyes keep darting to Harry’s shoulders. He’s clearly dying to ask why the country’s most famous Auror is _sparkling_ , but can’t bring himself to ask.

Masterson shows Harry and Padma to the ballroom where the gala will be held, complete with the glass display cases that will hold the jewellery. A Patronus arrives from the Auror team accompanying the pieces from Surrey confirming they’re on their way.

“Lot of fuss over nothing, if you ask me,” Masterson grouches, even though no one had. 

It’s true that Harry’s not really expecting anyone to attempt some sort of dramatic heist to nick off with a few necklaces, but Padma’s assured him the pieces are worth even more than the contents of his vaults, so his hand rests lightly over his wand as the other Aurors come into the room, standing at ease as the auction house staff open the display cases and mount each of the lots. 

Harry looks around, keeping an eye on the exits. The ballroom has been beautifully decorated for Christmas. Enormous green garlands are strung across the ceiling, woven through with holly and pinecones and enchanted snow. A truly towering tree stands beside the stage, with fairies dancing in all of the branches. Against the wall nearest Harry, a sleigh is stacked high with gold-wrapped packages.

No sooner has Harry opened his mouth to say something complementary about the decor than a terrible creak and a slithering sound starts behind him. Masterson’s face drops into a picture of horror and Harry spins around in time to see the artfully arranged pyramid of decorative gifts tumbling from the sleigh toward the ground like a waterfall. He rushes forward, wand out, in the hopes of stopping the disaster somehow but it’s far too late. The sleigh is empty and a couple of tiny parcels from the very top of the stack bounce off his wand arm before joining their compatriots on the ground.

The ballroom is suddenly very quiet.

Masterson looks apoplectic, turning on his heel and stomping out of the room with a speed Harry hadn’t thought the little man capable of.

“I mean, they’re _fake_ parcels,” Harry says, more to himself than anyone else. “It's not like they’re going to break.”

Padma glares at him, wide-eyed. But before she can wind up to whatever lecture she’s clearly getting ready to deliver, there’s a commotion at the glass cases. They both focus, wands at the ready.

“I didn’t do _anything_ ,” a thin young woman who works at the auction house is protesting in a reedy voice. “I pinned it to the velvet, that was it!”

All around the nearest glass case the air is glowing an angry, violent red: a sort of miasma that doesn’t look at all pleasant. Harry gets the rest of the team to step back and Padma throws up a standard set of security wards and scurries out to contact the appropriate people, one of whom is Robards, who’s not going to be happy. Harry casts a range of basic diagnostics, but the results are all over the place. Whatever it is, it’s not poisonous, or hot, but it sets off every warning alarm in his arsenal. And in worse news, it seems to be expanding.

“Fall back,” Harry calls and the Aurors move methodically around the ballroom, sealing each of the doors, before withdrawing into the lobby where Padma waits, securing the large double doors behind them.

Masterson appears, his face a livid puce. “What did you _do_?!”

“At this stage,” Padma steps in front of Harry, adopting her soothing post-incident voice, which is just as well because Harry didn’t touch the sleigh and he was certainly nowhere near the jewellery, so none of this is his fault. “We believe a curse may have been triggered. We’ve taken all the precautionary steps required, and we’ll have a team of Curse Breakers here any minute.”

 _Curse Breakers_ , Harry realises with a start, all of his righteous indignation leaking out of him at the thought. Maybe he’ll get lucky and it will be anyone other than—

“What trouble have the Auror Force managed to get themselves into now?” The icy tones of Draco Malfoy ring off the marble floor of the hotel lobby.

No such luck.

Padma briefs Malfoy and his partner, Sato, while Harry holds his tongue politely. Or rather, while Harry tries to think of sensible contributions he could make to the conversation that wouldn’t involve complimenting Malfoy on the very dashing cufflinks he’s wearing or the way his boots are very shiny. He must let some of that show on his face, however, because he suddenly realises Malfoy is staring at him with an extremely puzzled expression.

“Did the magic do that?” Malfoy asks, his tone curious.

Harry glances down at himself in horror, in case he’s sustained an injury he’s not aware of, but there’s nothing obvious he can see.

“Do what?”

Malfoy gives an incredulous wave at Harry’s torso. “Cover you in glitter!”

Padma snorts indelicately beside him, and Harry feels his ears grow hot. “No. The glitter is … uh … unrelated.”

Malfoy’s mouth opens and then closes again, as if even he’s not sure what to say to that. Curse Breaker Sato spends a few minutes setting up a double layer of protection wards around the door, and then she and Malfoy move within the safety bubble to open the door.

“What is this?” Malfoy calls out. “A lock of your own making?”

Harry frowns. “No. I sealed it with the standard Auror _Securus_.”

Malfoy casts at the door, and then Sato tries it. They put their heads together, conferring for a few minutes, and then try a quick raft of spells in unison. The door still doesn’t open.

“Perhaps, Auror Potter, you could come in here and try unlocking this for us?” Malfoy’s tone doesn’t exactly brook any argument and so Harry slips between the safety wards and joins them. He touches his wand to the door and mutters the spell. Nothing happens.

Harry casts again, putting a little more force behind it, but the lock doesn’t budge.

Malfoy sighs.

“I could use _Bombarda_?” 

Curse Breaker Sato sucks in a gasp as if Harry’s just suggested running over a puppy in the street. Malfoy is merely looking at him with one eyebrow raised, as if Harry’s just confirmed every negative impression he’s ever had.

“Perhaps, Potter, we’ll refrain from firing exploding charms at doors locked for unknown reasons with curse effects of unknown origins behind them, hmm? Just for the safety of the hotel patrons, you understand.” 

Harry wishes the marble would open up below his feet and swallow him. He’s an incredibly capable and successful law enforcement officer when Malfoy’s not around. There’s just something about this unbelievably buttoned-up blond that unravels all of Harry’s composure.

“Do you, uh, need anything further from us then? Or shall we get on with interviewing the auction house staff.”

Malfoy dismisses him with a wave, turning back to the door and crouching down to peer in the lock.

Harry sighs and exits the safety bubble, issuing instructions to the rest of the team and asking Masterson for some rooms from which they can work. None of the interviews reveal anything helpful at all, and other than taking a Pensieve memory from the young woman who had seemed to trip the curse, there isn’t much more they can do. When Harry and his team leave the hotel, Malfoy and Sato are still together in their bubble, and the doors are still firmly closed.

It’s been a long, disastrous sort of day, and Harry’s cheered to come home to his tree. He remembers the calendar picture that Rose had revealed, and digs around in his Christmas shopping bags for the candles he’d purchased. Sure enough, when he lights a couple on the windowsill, the seventh door glows contentedly. Behind door nine, he finds a picture of a Christmas cracker. Something he hasn’t bought yet and definitely needs to. It can go on the list for when he stocks up on the groceries at the weekend. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Kreacher, but the elf’s cooking can go astray, and it won’t hurt to have a few back-ups in the pantry.

Harry falls asleep that night thinking about the angry red fog and the way Malfoy’s cufflinks caught the light when he cast. Hopefully the door will be open by tomorrow, or Harry’s confident he’s going to be the one facing the blame.

* * *

Prompt Nine:


	10. December 10th

Harry lasts about an hour at his desk the next morning before he cracks.

“I’m going to the Langley,” he says to Padma, grabbing his coat from the rack behind the door.

She glances up with a start. “What? Why?”

Harry wishes he’d spent a few more minutes concocting an excuse before lurching to his feet.

“If they’ve broken the curse then I’d like to … uh … examine the scene.”

Padma frowns. “If they’d broken the curse, someone would have told us. It’s our case.”

“Well, then, if they’re still working maybe I can help.”

Her frown turns to outright disbelief and then transforms into a very smug smile that Harry definitely doesn’t appreciate. “Maybe you can help the head Curse Breaker … break a curse?” 

“I can be useful,” Harry manages defensively as he shrugs into his coat.

“You got an Acceptable in our curse-breaking rotation during training,” she calls after him as he leaves, but he ignores her. The curse-breaking rotation was tedious, and involved a great deal too much arithmancy and precision spellwork for his tastes. Harry thinks an Acceptable is just fine given the Ministry employs _actual_ curse breakers, a team of which have fortunately managed to finally re-enter the ballroom at the Langley by the time he arrives.

The safety wards have been moved in to surround the affected glass case, and yesterday’s angry red fog seems to have dissipated, leaving a pulsing light emanating from the necklace. Malfoy, and another Curse Breaker Harry doesn’t recognise, are both taking turns to cast at it in succession. Malfoy looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes. His uniform robes have been abandoned somewhere and he’s in white shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows. Harry catches a glimpse of his faded Mark as Malfoy swings his wand hand back and begins the incantation again. 

Malfoy’s partner is standing back, scratching notes on a piece of parchment. Harry slips quietly up to stand beside her, not wanting to interrupt.

“Have you been here all night?” he whispers.

Sato shakes her head. “I haven’t, but he has.”

No wonder Malfoy looks tired.

“We’re nearly through it, though,” she says, scribbling another quick line of notes in response to something she sees.

Sure enough, Malfoy seems to be winding up into a crescendo. Gold threads of magic dance back and forth from his wand, and the Curse Breaker who had been assisting him steps back to give him more room to work. The air around them feels charged and the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck stand on end. He’s pretty sure that’s an effect of the magic in the air and not just the result of hearing intricate counter-curses fly fluently from Malfoy’s tongue. With a sudden final flourish, there’s a surge of bright light, and then it’s gone, the necklace lying safely in its velvet bed.

Harry feels like bursting into a round of applause, but the other Curse Breakers simply move forward carefully, casting a full suite of diagnostic spells to be sure.

“And we’re clear,” Sato concludes, making a final note on her page.

Malfoy looks absolutely shattered. He immediately turns on his heel and leaves the room, before Harry can say anything at all.

Harry’s about to follow to see if he’s okay, but Sato catches his arm gently. “Give him a moment, Auror Potter. He needs to … catch his breath.”

Harry does as she suggests, and takes a moment to send a Patronus to Padma letting her know that the Auror security team can return. Then he heads out into the lobby. The heels of his boots click loudly on the marble floor. Harry glances around until he sees Malfoy, sitting on a padded bench near the reception desk.

Harry walks over and sits down beside him, unsure of what to say. He wants to congratulate him on what was clearly a very difficult job well done, but it feels awkward. He and Malfoy don’t really chat, even when they run into each other at the Ministry or they're on a case together. Malfoy is leaning forward, his blond hair a curtain, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. Harry hands him a bottle of water he snagged off one of the ballroom tables, and Malfoy accepts it gratefully, taking several long swallows.

“What was behind it, do you think?” Harry asks, trying not to stare at the pale column of his throat as he drinks. “The curse.”

“The necklace was reacting to being relocated as if it had been stolen,” Malfoy says, handing the bottle back. “Ancient families weren’t exactly familiar with the idea of borrowing.”

Harry has a sudden and very vivid memory of the Lestrange vault and the endlessly multiplying, searing hot metal. He sucks in a short breath. Malfoy gives him a curious look, but Harry can’t bring himself to explain. 

He watches as two junior hotel staff members sort out a pile of Christmas decorations for the Muggle storefront that hides the Langley from view. Harry admires the enormous heap of tinsel and golden bells. Nothing's exploded in a few days, but he figures he should stay well clear, just in case.

“Not the robins,” the taller one says, levitating several stuffed birds to one side. “Those aren’t Muggle.”

“Are too,” the other responds, stopping them in mid-air. “My aunt has ‘em all over her Christmas stockings."

“But robins don’t have anything to do with Christmas for Muggles.”

“Actually, they used to call their mailmen ‘redbreasts’ ‘cause of their jackets. And they bring all the Christmas letters and parcels. It’s a metaphor.”

“Like I’d trust you on Muggle Relations after the firefly incident. Find another Muggleborn to back you up and I’ll listen to them instead.” The tall one rolls his eyes. “Robins delivering mail. Ludicrous.”

“I didn’t know that,” Malfoy murmurs. His voice sounds strained, probably from a long night of casting.

Harry glances sideways at him.

“The bit about Muggles calling their mail carriers ‘robins’ because of their uniforms.”

Harry’s waiting for there to be some nasty follow up comment, dismissive of Muggles and their whole Christmas tradition, but Malfoy just looks thoughtful.

“To be honest,” Harry confesses, “I get pretty confused about which bits of Christmas are Muggle and which bits aren’t.”

“It was a whole thing,” Malfoy goes on. “In the Victorian era. For wizards to get robins to carry their Christmas greetings instead of owls. Very fashionable for about five minutes until everyone realised robins are really too small for that sort of thing. They’d get tired too easily and your cards would turn up in February, if at all.”

Harry chuckles. It sounds exactly like the sort of frivolous pure-blood nonsense he can imagine Malfoy’s ancestors getting up to. His laugh seems to startle Malfoy, as if he’s only just now realised that it’s Harry he’s talking to.

Malfoy gets up and dusts off his trousers a little. “Yes, well. I need to shower off three layers of filth and sleep for a week.” He seems awkward now. Uncomfortable. Harry wants to pat the bench beside him and get him to sit down again. He wants to recapture that brief moment from a few seconds ago when Malfoy treated him like one of his friends. 

“That was really impressive,” he manages instead. “What you did in there with the....” he wafts his hand in a lame approximation of Malfoy’s graceful casting.

The very tips of Malfoy’s ears go pink. His face doesn’t react at all. “Good day, Potter,” he says, his tone cool, and Apparates away. Harry sighs.

He waits until the Aurors arrive and deploys them around the hotel according to his and Padma’s plan, but he feels out of sorts. Like he missed an opportunity somehow. Which is probably why he’s not paying quite enough attention as he heads through the lobby for the final time to hand off to Masterson. Not enough attention, in any event, to work out how three dozen tinsel-strung bells manage to fall from the ceiling in one disastrous cacophony behind him.

* * *

Prompt Ten:


	11. December 11th

Wednesday morning seems to follow Harry around like a dark cloud. 

It isn’t just that his alarm fails to wake him— _again_ —it’s that Grimmauld Place is still absolutely freezing, he can only find one of every pair of gloves he owns, and he can’t get the Floo to stay lit long enough to use. It’s been years since Harry’s had to flush himself through the public entrance to the Ministry and it’s an ignominious start to the day.

Padma is out for the morning chasing down a lead in Shropshire, and when she returns she looks exasperated. “What are you wearing?!”

Harry glances down at himself, fully expecting to see more glitter, or worse. But his uniform jacket looks neat and tidy, and there’s nothing obvious out of place. “What do you mean?”

“It’s Wednesday, Harry. You’re supposed to be in dress uniform.”

Harry looks at the desk calendar with a sinking sensation. Sure enough, circled in red, today’s the day he’s supposed to be at Hogwarts dedicating a new wing.

“ _Rowena,_ you’re going to be so late. You’ll have to go like that. Did you remember your Order of Merlin, at least?”

Harry pulls a face at her. If he’d forgotten what day it was, he was unlikely to have a bloody medal in his pocket. 

“Maybe you can borrow one?” she suggests hopefully, which is how Harry comes to be arriving at the Hogwarts gates in his everyday uniform, wearing mismatched gloves, with Robard’s medal pinned to his chest.

Minerva meets him in the entrance hall, tucking her pocket watch away not at all discreetly, but gives him a warm smile. “I thought we might have to start without you, Harry,” she says, steering him swiftly through the corridors.

Most of the ceremonial things Harry’s asked to do bore him to tears: giving speeches, cutting ribbons. He usually only agrees if there’s a substantial donation made to charity. But Hogwarts is different. He’ll always say yes to anything Minerva asks of him, but particularly this, the chance to open the Cedric Diggory Memorial Wing: a long, low stone building filled with bright, airy classrooms, and an enormous new gymnasium charmed to be several stories higher inside than out. Harry’s seen the plans and progress photos, but nothing could prepare him for the sight of Hogwarts students on brooms indoors. The Gryffindor Quidditch players are swooping overhead in neat formation above the gathered crowd of students and dignitaries sitting in neat rows.

“It’s magnificent,” Harry murmurs, thinking back to his own school days and the grim Quidditch practices he’d endured in the snow. 

Harry joins Minerva on the podium with Cedric’s parents, and other senior members of the Hogwarts staff and Board of Trustees. He keeps his remarks brief, cuts an oversized red ribbon, and joins in the riotous applause when the students take to the air again for a very flashy series of trick maneuvers and turns. 

“You’ll join us for lunch, of course,” Minerva says, as the crowd filters out of the gym, and Harry agrees. The Great Hall is beautifully decorated for Christmas, the enormous trees every bit as magnificent as Harry remembers. He carefully avoids each of them, walking in a wide arc as he makes his way to the head table.

“What are you doing?” Neville asks, clapping Harry on the back as he joins him. Harry feels a bit foolish, but as he loads up his plate, he starts to tell Neville all about his run of Christmas bad luck. 

“Honestly, mate. I can’t go near a Christmas tree at the moment. Anything could happen. It’s like I’m cursed.” 

Neville laughs, but Harry feels a bit glum. It’s going to put a serious dampener on his ability to host a festive family Christmas if the baubles keep falling down and the fire keeps going out.

Alicia Spinnet leans across him for the gravy.

“Just decorations on trees?” she asks. Alicia had absolutely thrown herself into her studies after the war, determined to put everything she’d learned in Dumbledore’s Army to good use. She was the youngest appointment to the Defence against the Dark Arts post in a hundred years, and thanks to Voldemort’s curse on the position finally being broken, one of its most long-standing.

“Decorations on trees, tinsel. I’ve also been attacked by a rogue delivery of Christmas mail, and possibly ruined Islington’s annual lights display. Honestly, I think I should just give up. Clearly this is not the year for me to turn my hand to the festive season.”

Alicia considers him for a moment while he chases a potato around his plate, then she takes out her wand and levitates a decoration off a nearby tree. When it reaches her hand, he can see it’s a simple silver angel.

“Put your hand out, Harry,” Alicia instructs, and he does as she asks. She dangles the angel over his upturned palm, and whispers an incantation at the same time. Nothing happens for a second, and Harry’s about to make a joke, when all of a sudden the metal wings of the angel fall clean off.

“ _Merlin_ ,” Neville exclaims. “At least that wasn’t an actual fairy.”

Harry hands the pieces of the decoration back to Alicia guiltily, who _Reparos_ it quickly and sends it back to the tree. 

“I think you’re actually cursed, Harry,” she says, as if that should be obvious, and goes back to eating her ham.

“You what?” Harry splutters. “Really?”

“Well, it’s clearly nothing major, if it’s just ruining Christmas ornaments,” she says. “And that basic diagnostic I cast isn’t showing any of the straightforward things it might be. But you ought to get a specialist to look at it to be sure.”

“A specialist….” Harry hopes she means someone at St Mungo’s, because Hannah works there and is always very nice to him.

“A Curse Breaker, Harry,” Alicia punctures his hopes with a laugh. “I understand you probably work with a few.”

Harry wrinkles his nose at the idea of having to describe his recent run of disasters to Malfoy. Maybe Sato will help him instead. She seems nice, although Harry can’t actually recall seeing her _without_ Malfoy at her side.

“It’s that or accept that your Christmas is probably going to be a disaster,” Alicia shrugs. Harry has a sudden, vivid image of Molly Weasley shivering at his table in the half-dark, exploded decorations draped over the wilted branches of a dying tree behind her.

“I’ll talk to Malfoy.”

* * *

Prompt Eleven:


	12. December 12th

Talking to Malfoy turns out to be harder than Harry imagined. On his return from Hogwarts, he found Malfoy and Sato’s office empty, and the departmental assistant told him that the whole team were in Manchester dealing with an incident involving the Knight Bus.

Harry was sure it would be fine to wait until the next day, but when he got home the situation at Grimmauld seemed to have deteriorated further. Harry could see his breath in front of his face, it was so cold inside. He contemplated the one bright spot in the house: his sparkling advent calendar. Even that seemed to have taken on a slightly desperate tint, and he realised he’d missed a day. Door ten was stuck so firmly he wound up taking a butter knife to it to prise it open. The picture behind was of a gingerbread house, but it honestly looked more suited to Halloween than Christmas, with broken windows and sagging eaves. The eleventh door revealed mistletoe hanging over a door. It looked cheery, but honestly the idea of kissing anyone this festive season seemed so remote that Harry just wanted to laugh. No chance of fulfilling that task. He banked the fire in his bedroom, dragged two more duvets from his spare rooms, and hoped that Malfoy would have some answers for him in the morning. It took him a long time to fall asleep.

Harry figures he shouldn’t really be surprised when he tries to get ready for work the next day and his boots are nowhere to be found. The sooner he gets this curse sorted, the better. He tugs on a ratty pair of trainers and makes sure to finish actually swallowing his toast before he steps into the Floo, just in case.

Harry passes Sato as he heads toward the Curse Breaking department.

“Is he in?” he asks, pointing in the direction of their office. She nods.

“Do you need us for a case? I was just going to get coffee.”

“No, go ahead. I just want to ask his advice about something.” Harry would far rather confess to his Christmas misfortune with no witnesses if possible.

Malfoy is a picture of concentration, seated at his desk, quill flying over a piece of parchment. Harry takes a moment to just look. Malfoy had always been clever, of course. But at school that had always been paired with such a nasty superiority complex that it was nothing Harry appreciated. The thing is, though, Harry’s loved magic since the very first moment he became aware of it. Absolutely nothing is more appealing to him than someone who has a genuine talent for it, and Malfoy has that in spades. He’s also grown up to be incredibly easy on the eyes. So really, Harry’s at a loss to know what he’s supposed to do about the colossal crush he’s managed to develop.

“Did you need something, Potter?” Malfoy says, without looking up from his work. 

Harry swallows guiltily, wondering how long Malfoy has been aware he was lurking there in the door like a creeper.

“Yes. I think I’ve been cursed.”

Malfoy glances up with a start, giving Harry a long once-over. 

“When? Are you injured? What happened? Why didn’t you call us to your location? You know it’s easier for us to work when we—”

“No, no. Nothing like that,” Harry cuts him off. Malfoy settles back in his chair, relaxing a notch but still frowning in concern.

“Explain.”

Harry figures he isn’t going to get an invitation to sit down, so he draws out the chair on the other side of Malfoy’s desk and does so anyway as he gathers his thoughts.

“Alicia Spinnet suggested I talk to you. I saw her at Hogwarts yesterday.”

“Remarkably capable, for a Gryffindor,” Malfoy says, and Harry supposes that, coming from him, it’s high praise indeed.

“The thing is, I’ve been having a run of bad luck lately. Just the last two weeks, really.” Harry starts to outline all the things that have gone awry. The way Christmas trees seem to hate him, Floos refuse to behave around him, and he can’t seem to find all of the pieces of his uniform to wear at once.

Malfoy glances meaningfully at Harry’s trainers. “I’ll admit the glitter was unusual, but otherwise I wouldn’t say I’ve noticed anything different about your appearance.”

Harry ignores the jibe.

"Let's face it, I've had my fair share of bad luck, this now feels like something ... I don't know, deliberate." 

"And you think someone's out to get you by making Christmas fail spectacularly in your presence?" Malfoy manages to ask this with only the smallest hint of disbelief in his tone.

"No, I...I don't know…” Harry breaks off as Malfoy, unbelievably, starts to chuckle.

“Something funny?" 

"Not really. Just, time was, I'd have been top of your list of suspects, not confidantes." 

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that. They’ve never spoken about their past. Not in the immediate, horrible aftermath when Harry spoke in Malfoy and his mother’s defence at their trials. Certainly not since he swept back into Harry’s professional life.

The silence stretches between them for a moment too long, and Malfoy’s good humour vanishes.

“Very well, then. Do I have your consent to cast?” he asks, a picture of formality once more.

Harry nods, wishing again that he’d been faster. That an opportunity hadn’t slipped through his fingers. 

The diagnostic spells wash over him like a gentle breeze, the feel of Malfoy’s magic cool and refreshing. Harry bites his lip. The last thing he needs is to have to explain away getting aroused in the midst of a curse examination.

Malfoy flicks his wand and puts it back down on his desk. “Not cursed,” he concludes, picking up his pen and going back to his notes.

“What? Are you sure?” 

Malfoy looks up at him, eyebrows raised in absolute disbelief. 

“Am I _sure_?”

“Well, it’s just that you only…” Harry’s not really sure what Malfoy had done. His Acceptable in curse breaking extended to only the most basic knowledge of curse diagnostics, but surely you had to do a bit more than a single spell to be certain.

Malfoy makes a strangled sort of noise in the back of his throat. “You are not suffering the effects of curse. If you doubt that diagnosis, I can give you the names of thirteen first class Curse Breakers on the continent I consider to be almost as qualified as I am for a second opinion.”

“No, no,” Harry waves his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I mean, you must be right. I guess it’s just coincidence after all.” He wipes his palms, suddenly sweaty, on his trouser legs and wishes he’d said nothing.

“Close the door on your way out.”

Harry drags his feet a little as he heads back to his own office, disappointed in a whole range of ways. Not only does he not have a curse to blame, but also, apparently, he’s so capable of putting his foot in his mouth that he’s ruined whatever little moment he might have had with Malfoy.

In the Ministry lobby, around the restored Fountain of Magical Brethren, a small Christmas market has been set up, with stallholders selling Christmas trinkets and decorations. One cart near the edge stocks beautifully-decorated Yule logs, wrapped in plaid ribbons, ivy, and berries. Harry selects one and the witch behind the stall packs it into a bag for him. 

He’s just thinking about getting some hand-made Christmas crackers from the next barrow, when there’s a sudden series of cracking reports like Muggle gunfire. 

“Get down!” someone shouts, and Harry draws his wand, crouching behind the cart and shielding the startled witch. Projectiles fly in all directions, punching a hole in the decorative banner, and shooting straight through a whole display of glass decorations. 

Harry glances around desperately for the source of the threat. The noise is deafening. He throws up a security shield and moves forward carefully, watching as the ammunition bounces violently off his magic, ricocheting in all directions. 

And then he sees it.

The last cart in the row, stocking roasted chestnuts. Chestnuts that, for no apparent reason at all, have started hurling themselves from the pan. Harry watches as the pan empties, the terrified vendor throwing his hands in the air. Silence finally reigns.

 _Maybe now_ , Harry thinks, _Malfoy will believe me_.

* * *

Prompt Twelve:


	13. December 13th

It turns out to be a great deal more difficult for Harry to convince anyone that he’s cursed than he would have imagined.

In the immediate aftermath of the roasted chestnut bombardment, it felt like every person working in the Ministry came running. The mediwizards made sure that no-one’s injuries were serious, refusing to let Harry do anything until he’d submitted to a completely unnecessary examination.

“I wasn’t even hit,” he complained, but he was ignored.

Malfoy and his entire team followed in the next wave, casting a barrage of spells at the chestnut cart, it’s sputtering fire, the giant pan. Harry sat watching him issue terse instructions to the junior Curse Breakers—who fanned out and began checking all the surrounding carts, the Floos, even the fountain itself—while he and Sato continued to levitate and cast at dozens of individual chestnuts. It was both ridiculous and sort of breath-taking to watch, if Harry was being honest, but after a full half-hour Malfoy lowered his wand and announced to Robards that the lobby was curse-free.

Harry was aghast, but Malfoy didn’t even look in his direction as he left, and Harry felt like it was probably a bit much to suggest he’d missed a curse twice in one day so he let him go.

The Aurors detained the startled wizard who had been manning the stall, interrogating him as if he’d been trying to start the Third Wizarding War rather than flogging some warmed over nuts. Then the investigation moved out to all of the other vendors, and the well-meaning witch who’d organised the Christmas market in the first place, and then everyone who’d purchased anything that day. Harry kept insisting it must have been a curse, but his protests fell on deaf ears in the wake of Malfoy’s efforts.

“Obviously not, Potter,” snapped Robards.

“Malfoy would have detected it,” insisted Padma.

“He cast _seventeen_ variants of the Kasperov Diagnosis Incantation,” whispered a wide-eyed trainee who was scribbling notes in a book.

“It’s a curse,” Harry muttered to himself. Malfoy might be good at his job, but he’d missed something. Harry was sure of it.

He was even _more_ sure of it when he finally got home that night.

Grimmauld Place had moved past drafty, through cold, into actually freezing. There was frost on the inside of the window panes and as Harry stepped into the front hall he realised to his horror that the wooden floorboards were covered in a thin sheet of ice. Conceding defeat, he Accioed an overnight bag and Apparated to the Red Lion.

“Actual ice?” Ron looked confused. “Indoors?”

“Yes! My feet nearly went out from under me as soon as I stepped on it.”

“Old wizarding houses can be a bit finickity. Maybe you need to get someone to come take a look at it.”

“It’s not the house,” Harry said glumly. “It’s me.”

“Maybe the curse is only operating some of the time. You should get Malfoy to come to Grimmauld Place. It’s his batshit family that used to own it anyway. Bet he’d be able to tell you what was going on.”

The thought of Malfoy seeing the slightly grim conditions under which he was currently living was pretty unappealing, but so was the idea of being unable to host Christmas because of an arctic climate in the hallway, and so as Harry settled into one of the cramped guest rooms above the pub that night he resolved to ask him first thing in the morning.

It was amazing what a night’s sleep at a normal temperature could do for Harry’s mood. He woke refreshed and determined. Which lasted until he was greeted with a response from Malfoy even icier than Grimmauld Place.

“Absolutely not.”

“But, I’m pretty sure—”

“Potter, in the last twenty-four hours, you have managed to insinuate that I don’t know what I’m doing, to the Head Auror no less, any number of our colleagues, and—to your credit, I suppose—also to my face.”

“It’s not that—”

“You may think that what I do is akin to, I don’t know, _divining water_. That I wave my wand around and sometimes hit paydirt and pass that off as a speciality, but I assure you if you had concentrated at all during training you might have understood that it is both more complex and _far_ more accurate than that.”

“I didn’t—”

“And having done your best to undermine my professional reputation, I’m to understand that now you’d like me to come to your house, so that I can look for a cursed object like some glorified, magical equivalent of an airport baggage scanner.”

Harry’s so startled by the idea of Draco Malfoy knowing what an airport baggage scanner is that he loses his train of thought. 

“The answer is still _no_ , Potter. It won’t matter how long you stand there gaping at me like a fish.”

Harry closes his mouth. He’d thought he’d be able to persuade Malfoy to help based solely on the interesting challenge of an ice rink in his hallway and hadn’t really anticipated just how big a hole he’d dug for himself the day before. Plus, Malfoy somehow manages to deliver his dressing-down without raising his voice or getting so much as a single hair out of place, which Harry thinks is wildly unfair, because he can’t match wits with anyone who looks the way Malfoy does without being hopelessly distracted. He suspects even if he challenged him to something he’s good at, like duelling, he’d wind up disarmed with a bloody trip jinx because he’d be too busy thinking about how Malfoy manages to get his shirts so well-tailored and why he always smells like cedar and sunlight—a fate that definitely never befell him when they fought at school.

“Well, if you’re not going to leave, then I will.” Malfoy snaps, getting to his feet and sweeping past Harry and out the door before he can protest any further. 

Sato gives him a sympathetic look from behind her desk on the other side of the room.

“I’d offer to come and look at your house, but he’d….” she trails off, leaving Harry to imagine just how badly Malfoy would take that.

“No, it’s okay. There’s no point in you getting in trouble as well,” Harry smiles at her. “I’ll fix things with him, it’s fine.”

He says it with considerably more confidence than he feels, realising he’s going to have to spend a few more nights at the Red Lion. If hosting the Weasley Christmas is a sign that he’s got himself, his home, and his family sorted, then Harry’s currently zero out of three, but he’s still got at least ten days to go. _That’s plenty of time_ , he thinks. _It’s going to have to be_.

* * *

Prompt Thirteen:


	14. December 14th

Harry’s plan to fix things with Malfoy gets off to a shaky start when he discovers that every item of clothing he’s brought to the Red Lion has inexplicably transfigured itself into something more festive. His uniform jacket has a line of embroidered Christmas trees around the hem. Both shirts have Santas and snowmen dancing beside the buttons. And the less said about the reindeer on his boxers, the better.

At first, Harry assumes Ron—or more likely, George—has embarked on some dreadful holiday prank. He Floos straight to Grimmauld Place to get more clothes, but even after carefully navigating the ice in the hallway and a frankly polar blast on the stairs, all he finds in his closet is yet more of the same. Ugly Christmas sweaters, pajamas covered in candy canes, scarves covered in snowflakes. There’s no way George came here and did this without saying anything to Harry about the state of his house, so there’s clearly something else going on. He picks the least offensive shirt and trousers he can find and is at Madame Malkin’s when she opens her doors. 

“Goodness, Mr Potter, you’re very early.” She looks his outfit over. “And very _seasonal_.” 

Harry sighs. “I’m currently unable to find any clothing in my house that _isn’t_ seasonal. I just need a uniform jacket and some plain trousers, please.”

She waves him into her store, and immediately sets about fitting a standard Auror jacket to his size. Harry stares at the sleeve suspiciously, as if Christmas trees might start embroidering themselves on it before his very eyes, but nothing happens. Madame Malkin twitches her wand back and forth, regaling Harry with a long and hard-to-follow story about her nephew Evgeni, a sports star living as a Muggle in America. Harry fidgets impatiently.

“Could have been a Quidditch star,” she concludes mournfully, casting the final tiny stitches into place. “But no, wants to slide around on ice like a Squib.” 

Something about hearing about ice-skating causes a little click of recognition in the back of Harry’s mind. He thanks her profusely and gathers his cast-off Christmas clothes into a bag as proof. Of what, exactly, he’s not sure.

He pauses long enough to get coffees at the cart in the Ministry lobby, and one of those ridiculous tiny pastries Malfoy likes. Harry tried one once and just got sugary flakes all over his robes, but he’s not above bribery in the current circumstances.

Malfoy is alone in his office when Harry gets there, and closes his eyes briefly, taking in a deep breath. “I thought I made myself clear.”

“White, two sugars,” Harry responds, setting the coffee cup and the pastry down on Malfoy’s desk. If Malfoy asks, it was definitely the barista who knew his order, and not a piece of information Harry’s somehow come to know through paying entirely too much attention.

“A cup of coffee isn’t going to get me to change my mind. One of your Weasleys is a Curse Breaker. Get him to help. Maybe you’ll take what he has to say seriously.”

“I take what _you_ have to say seriously,” Harry insists. Malfoy scoffs.

“But the thing is, there’s also this.” Harry pulls his shirt and trousers out of the Malkins bag and drops them onto Malfoy’s desk. Malfoy pokes at them with his wand.

“Tacky Christmas attire?” he asks. “Are you changing careers? Planning to start scooping candy-cane-flavoured ice cream at Fortescues?”

“These clothes were perfectly normal yesterday. And now I can’t transfigure them back. Can you?”

Malfoy wrinkles his nose at the challenge, as if Harry’s just asked him to perform a basic _Alohomora_. He flicks his wand at Harry’s shirt. The snowmen do not budge. He casts again, muttering a different set of incantations. One of the embroidered Santas waves at him.

Harry bites his lip before an ‘ _I told you so’_ can fly out.

“If this is some sort of practical joke, Potter….”

“It’s definitely not,” Harry assures him quickly. “At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not. And I think it’s connected to the fact you can currently ice skate inside my house.”

“Why would you—”

“Look, you say it’s not a curse, and I trust your professional opinion,” Harry barrels on, despite Malfoy’s increasingly skeptical expression. “But ever since I said I was going to host Christmas at my house, the wheels have been falling off. And the only thing that seems to connect all these disasters is an advent calendar.”

Malfoy’s brow furrows slightly. “What sort of advent calendar?”

“A wooden one, with little doors. There’s pictures behind each door, of the things you’re supposed to do. To celebrate Christmas, I guess. Baking, decorating the tree, that sort of thing.”

“Where did you get it?” 

“It came with the house.” Harry feels slightly awkward saying it, as if he owes Malfoy some sort of explanation for inheriting a house full of Black heirlooms that would probably otherwise have passed to him, but Malfoy just looks curious.

“How old is it?

“Do I look like Antiques Roadshow to you?” Harry laughs. He thinks he might have hooked him now, though; he can tell by the interested tilt of Malfoy’s head. The same one he gets in the field when confronted with a particularly difficult problem to solve.

“Why would you think an _advent calendar_ was able to transfigure your clothes?” Malfoy pushes at the shirt again with his wand, as if it’s offended him by refusing to respond to his magic.

“I don’t _know_. All I know is that I was foolish enough to suggest to my family that I could host Christmas, something they take _very_ seriously. And instead of hanging mistletoe and baking gingerbread, I’m contending with a house I can’t heat, mail that wants to attack me, and decorations that explode. You’re the cleverest person I know—other than Hermione, but I really cannot let her know what a mess I’m in because I’ve only ticked about three things off the list she gave me—and I _really_ need your help.”

Malfoy appears at a loss for words. He stares at Harry for a long moment. Harry feels self-conscious, as if he’s put too much of himself on display. Made himself too vulnerable to someone who, historically, would have only delighted in taking advantage of it. He feels his face heat, and snatches up his clothes, stuffing them back in the bag.

“Never mind. You’re right, I should owl Bill. He’ll be back from Cairo on Friday and—”

“I’ll help.” Malfoy cuts him off quietly.

Harry looks up, surprised.

“Really?”

Malfoy has a strange expression on his face but it clears quickly. He shuffles some parchment around on his desk and clears his throat. “Yes, but not today. I’m extremely busy, Auror Potter, and your Christmas woes don’t appear to be life-threatening. I’ll meet you at Grimmauld Place first thing tomorrow.”

Harry’s heart soars and he agrees readily. One more night at the Lion and whatever nonsense happens to his clothes in the meantime, and then he’ll be back on track.

* * *

Prompt Fourteen:


	15. December 15th

Harry’s not sure what Malfoy means by “first thing”, but he knows he absolutely cannot leave him standing on the Grimmauld doorstep, so he’s back shivering in his front hall before the sun has even risen. The ice has gotten thicker and much more treacherous underfoot. Harry briefly considers conjuring blades onto the bottom of his shoes. The fireplaces have gone out altogether, so he sends Malfoy a Patronus telling him the address so that he can pass through the Fidelius. A very cold hour passes before he hears a knock on the front door. He skids carefully across the ice to open it.

“A giant stag yelling at me is not exactly how I like to be woken on a weekend, Potter. Particularly when I’m doing you a favour.”

Harry’s brought up too short by a casually-dressed Malfoy on his doorstep to formulate any kind of response. Malfoy’s expensive-looking cream cardigan and dark jeans make Harry all the more self-conscious about the fact that he’s currently clad in yesterday’s trousers and a jumper covered in reindeer, and frankly, also make his mouth water a little.

Malfoy gives his outfit a critical look and seems about to say something, when he gets distracted by the floor behind him.

“ _Salazar_ , you weren’t joking about needing skates.” He crouches to touch the ice. “ _Accio_ salt.”

A box of cooking salt comes sailing up the stairs from the kitchen and into Malfoy’s hand. He proceeds to shake it out over the ice, stepping onto it carefully as he enters. A much more sensible idea than conjuring blades, Harry’s forced to admit to himself.

Once inside, Malfoy’s all business, pointing his wand at the floorboards and the walls, casting rapidly. Harry sinks to sit on the stairs and watch him. It’s not as if he can help, exactly, and it’s pretty overwhelming to have the golden flair of Malfoy’s magic up close and personal in his home. Malfoy, naturally, does not explain what he’s doing at all.

“Alright. Show me this calendar,” he says, after a few moments, lowering his wand. Harry points in the direction of the sitting room, and waits while Malfoy throws more salt on the ground before leading the way.

It’s worse than he feared. Between the charred remains of the broom-Santa, the piles of unsorted and unwanted mail, the unlit fire, the truly Arctic temperature, and the now wilting branches of his poor tree, the room feels positively depressing. Worse even than the house had felt during the War, and that was saying something.

He wants to make excuses for it, or point out that it’s not normally this bad, obviously, but Malfoy seems focussed only on the advent calendar.

“You haven’t opened all the doors,” he points out.

“I haven’t been here, on account of the ice and all,” Harry retorts, rolling his eyes behind Malfoy’s back. Malfoy reaches out and tries to open door twelve, but doesn’t have any luck.

“They don’t seem to like it when I forget about them,” Harry explains, getting the butter knife from where he’d left it on the mantle and prising open the door. Malfoy stares at him, incredulous. 

“Magic is absolutely wasted on you, isn’t it?” he sighs, waving his wand at the calendar and popping open doors thirteen, fourteen and fifteen in one obnoxious flourish.

Harry ignores him and peers in at the little pictures. Number twelve is a scene of a family all wearing matching Christmas sweaters. 

“My clothes!” Harry exclaims, tugging at the scratchy reindeer jumper. “Well, I’m wearing it, what more do you want.”

As if it can hear him, the calendar gives a sputtering, weak glow to the twelfth door, not nearly as bright as the others. Harry sighs. Door thirteen has children making popcorn strings behind it. Fourteen is a group of carollers on a doorstep; fifteen has a couple building a snowman together.

Malfoy produces a parchment pad out of nowhere and starts to scribble notes. He looks around the dark, dingy room and back at the calendar, and then scribbles again.

“So, these doors that are lit up. These are things that you’ve done?” 

Harry nods sagely, not wanting to admit that it was actually Rose who had worked it out. “I’ve hung a wreath on the front door. The cards on the mantlepiece were a bit of an accident, but that still seemed to work.”

“Can we test it, now, so I can see?”

Harry glances at the other doors, and remembers the Yule log he’d bought at the Ministry market before all hell broke loose. He fetches it from the kitchen table, where he’d abandoned it along with the rest of his so-far-unnecessary Christmas shopping, and brings it back to the sitting room. He vanishes the remains of the broom, sets the decorative log carefully on the hearth in front of the fireplace, and steps back cautiously, expecting something terrible to happen.

After a long minute, the sixth door lights up happily.

Malfoy mutters something to himself, and writes yet more notes. Then he starts to cast again. First, a standard set of diagnostics that Harry recognises from the field, and then an increasingly complicated array of spells that send threads of magic out to encircle the calendar and reach every corner of the room.

Eventually, Malfoy lowers his wand again. 

“There’s no curse,” he concludes, shrinking his pad and tucking it away in his pocket.

Harry glances around in horror at the state of his house. That absolutely cannot be the right conclusion, Malfoy’s expertise be damned. He splutters, “But—”

Malfoy holds up a hand to silence him. “It’s not a _curse_ , but that’s not to say that there isn’t an awful lot of ancient magic surrounding this calendar.”

Harry feels his frustration spilling over. “What’s the difference?! Why are we splitting hairs over whether something that makes me a vortex for Christmas bad luck should technically be called a _curse_ or _ancient magic_?”

Malfoy gives him a withering look. “Because a curse, however complex, can be countered or broken using conventional methods. This cannot.”

Harry’s heart sinks. “So that’s it, then? I’m doomed to ruin the festive season for myself and everyone around me?” 

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Potter,” Malfoy retorts, already heading for the front door. “I’ll fix it, obviously, and in time for you to entertain your Weasleys.”

Harry is almost too startled to respond. “Where are you going?”

“Flourish & Blotts to begin with; possibly the Ministry library. There’s a book I might need from Hogwarts.”

Harry feels a little spark of hope reignite in his chest. 

“I could come and help!”

Malfoy’s answering look is absolutely withering. “With _research_ , Potter? Even if you weren’t currently prone to setting random objects on fire, I’m not sure that would speed things up any. I’ll owl you when I know more.”

And with that, he’s gone, leaving Harry with a box of salt, a very ugly jumper, and the feeling he should be insulted but instead is just a little bit delighted that Malfoy is on the case.

* * *

Prompt Fifteen:


	16. December 16th

Harry knows better than to bug Malfoy about his progress, so to pass the time he resolves to try and do what he can to appease the cursed calendar.

 _It’s not a curse_ , he imagines Malfoy insisting, like the pedant that he is, and rolls his eyes.

When Harry returns to Grimmauld Place from the pub the next morning, he’s relieved to discover the clothing situation has improved a little. At least his underwear is back to normal, and there’s one plain black turtleneck back in his drawers. The rest remains an unhinged collection of mismatched and sparkling festive-wear.

Harry makes a list of all the unlit doors on the calendar so far, including today’s door, which opens readily to reveal Christmas lights adorning the front of a house. That doesn’t seem like a very sensible place to start, given the current state of Grimmauld Place, but there are others he thinks he can tackle pretty easily.

Christmas crackers, for example. The corner store at the end of his street has a lone dented and very dusty-looking box of six sitting on a shelf beside the plastic cups people buy to drink wine in the park. They’re definitely overpriced, but Harry’s not in the mood to shop around. He takes them home, and piles a couple of them on the coffee table, even deciding to pull one for good measure. A plastic thimble falls out, along with a rolled up paper hat and a slip of paper that reads “What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney? _Claus-trophobia_!” Harry groans, but when he glances up, the light behind the ninth door is glowing brightly. 

Buoyed by his success, he decides to attempt all the food-related tasks together. He finds Kreacher grousing around in the kitchen, muttering under his breath in the gloom. “Kreacher minds his business, orders turkeys, bakes cake. Can’t even keep lights on.”

Harry feels a bit guilty. “Yes, there’s something wrong,” he concedes. “But I’m fixing it. Or Malfoy is….Or will be.”

The mention of Malfoy seems to pick Kreacher’s flagging ears up a bit. He scowls at Harry. “Master _Draco_ Malfoy, of the—”

“Ancient and noble, blah blah, yes,” Harry cuts him off before he can wind up into a pure-blood tirade. “So the house will be _fine_ and in plenty of time for Christmas.” He tries to sound as convincing as he can, and studiously ignores the date on the curling paper calendar above the fridge. 

Kreacher gives him a shrewd glare, and disappears into the pantry. “Demonstrates _some_ taste. Christmas miracle,” Harry hears from among the sacks of potatoes that seem to have appeared. He refuses to concentrate on what Kreacher means, and instead gathers the cookie cutters and gingerbread house kit before he Apparates to Hermione and Ron’s.

“Ron’s at the Lion,” Hermione says, as she passes Hugo to Harry so her hands are free to untangle one of Rose’s braids, which seems to have a small plastic dinosaur knotted in it. 

“I was actually hoping to use your kitchen,” Harry says, pulling faces at Hugo until the little boy chuckles.

At this, Hermione gives him her full attention, prompting an “ow” from Rose as the dinosaur tugs free. “Ron said you’d been staying over. Is the house really that bad?”

Harry gives her the basics, glossing over the parts about how it’s more or less completely uninhabitable and focussing instead on the mystery he’s tasked Malfoy to solve. It’s just enough of a distraction that she doesn’t ask him anything about his Christmas hosting plans, and instead keeps chattering away about ancient festival magic as she fetches him mixing bowls and spoons, and a stool for his quickly self-appointed sous chef Rose to stand on.

“Are we making curse biscuits?” she asks, fidgeting as Hermione ties an apron over her dress.

“It’s not a curse,” he and Hermione find themselves saying in unison. Harry laughs. “But I hope these biscuits will make the calendar happier, yes.”

Hermione takes Hugo and leaves Harry and Rose with a recipe she describes as “idiot-proof”. Harry wishes that the comment was aimed at his ten-year-old companion, but he knows it’s not. Still, with Rose reading the instructions and Harry carefully measuring everything, they manage to turn out a very good batch, cutting them into the shapes of gingerbread men, Christmas stockings, and jumpers. Harry has Rose in fits of giggles as they ice the biscuits, describing all the terrible things that have happened to his clothes. 

When Hermione returns, they’ve had to use rather more icing than the kit suggested to get their gingerbread house walls to stay up, but Harry’s pretty proud of their efforts. They finished in good time and at Rose’s insistence, have moved onto popcorn garlands.

Hermione eyes their lopsided eaves with a smile. “You know, George sells one that—”

“Puts itself together, I know. Somehow I think the calendar would view that as cheating.”

“It’s not sentient, Harry,” she snorts, putting on the kettle for tea. 

“Says you,” Harry retorts, somehow managing to stab himself in the finger with a needle again. “Ow.”

“Not like that, Harry,” Rose says, as if he were doing it on purpose. Her own popcorn string is already twice as long as his and much neater looking. He wishes he’d brought the plastic thimble from his Christmas cracker.

“So, _Malfoy_ ,” Hermione says, passing Harry a mug of tea and sitting down as if that counts as a complete sentence. Harry ignores her in favour of sticking himself with the needle again.

Hermione isn’t remotely discouraged by his lack of response. “Brunhilde says he’s very impressive.”

Brunhilde Stockport, the member of the Wizengamot that Hermione currently works for, is not someone whose opinion Hermione usually gives much credit to, but Harry’s not about to point that out.

“His case-closure rate is very high,” Harry agrees, definitely not looking in her direction and instead concentrating on tying off a fiddly bit of thread.

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his _case-closure rate_ she was referring to,” Hermione laughs, her tone smug.

“It’s _Malfoy_ ,” Harry says, helplessly. If he can’t explain to one of his oldest and dearest friends just how confusing it is to be so ridiculously attracted to someone with whom he has such a tormented history, then what hope is there, really?

“Yes, it seems it is.” She pats him on the hand and gives him an all-too-knowing look. Harry decides it’s definitely time to leave.

Rose is heartbroken when he tells her that he’ll be taking all their creations back to his house without her. But really, he can’t risk her slipping on the ice or Hermione seeing the state of things at Grimmauld Place. Christmas will be whisked away from him before he even gets the chance to throw any salt on the floor. But he promises Rose that there are other things she can help him with—carolling for one, the mere thought of which fills him with dread—and that since she’s off school now for the winter break there will be plenty of chances to visit. 

Barely appeased, she hands over her loops of popcorn and Harry heads for home.

The plate of biscuits and the gingerbread house he arranges on plates on the coffee table. He adds the popcorn strings to the branches of the tree, draping them in amongst Rose’s previous efforts. Sure enough, the little lights behind the eighth, tenth and thirteenth doors flare to life. Better yet, the wilted branches of the Christmas tree regain their lush green sheen, stretching a little to better hold up the decorations. And even more miraculously, the fire in the hearth sparks, tiny licks of flame dancing among the coals. There’s a chance he’ll save Christmas yet.

* * *

Prompt Sixteen:


	17. December 17th

Harry feels like the house is a little warmer when he wakes the next morning. He’s down to using two duvets instead of three, in any event. And when he checks in the sitting room, the fire lights on his first attempt and seems happy to stay lit. He opens the seventeenth door on the calendar, revealing a picture of a family wrapping presents together. _Definitely easier than carolling_ , Harry thinks.

He feels like he needs to keep up his momentum, and he doesn’t have any wrapping paper, so he quickly scans the other doors for something he can do. The picture of the couple building the snowman seems straightforward enough, something he can surely manage before work. 

He rummages around in the pantry for a carrot, and takes one of the gaudiest scarves he’s currently stuck with from his closet, and heads for the back garden. It’s true that the snow on the ground is pretty sludgy, and he’s lacking a spade or anything else useful, but he sweeps his wand back and forth using a range of not-very-applicable spells until he has a heap of the stuff that he can mold into shape. The end result is shorter than he imagined, and extremely lop-sided. And if he’s honest the carrot just looks a bit rude. But it’s a snowman. 

Unfortunately, as he hops back and forth in front of the fire attempting to defrost his hands, it seems like the calendar doesn’t agree. He taps the edges of it, swears at it a bit, but nothing changes. Door fifteen does not light.

Harry realises he’ll be late if he stands around arguing with an heirloom any longer, so he resolves to just buy some wrapping paper on his lunch break and try that instead.

“Where can I go ice-skating?” he asks Padma as soon as she arrives in the office.

“Any frozen pond?” she suggests, looking confused. 

“No, I mean somewhere with skates to rent and so on.” It’s not like he _owns_ skates, or knows how to transfigure them, or he’d have been wearing them in his house for a week.

“I think there’s a wizarding rink near Liverpool, if you wanted that. Or Somerset House, if you fancy Muggle. They have a rink up for Christmas.”

Muggle, definitely. Harry can’t think of anything worse than people recognising him as he slips and falls on his arse repeatedly. 

He tries to concentrate on his work, and definitely not on the absence of any artfully folded memos from the Curse Breaking department. At least three times he considers just popping by to see if Malfoy is in, but it doesn’t take much to imagine the lecture that would likely follow, so he manages to refrain. 

At lunch, he calls into Scribbulus to pick out some rolls of wrapping paper and pops by Luna’s store on his way back. The crowds in her shop haven’t eased at all, but she seems unfazed, kissing him on both cheeks and asking him to hold his hands out while she loops a sparkling grey wool around them. “The needles are running low,” she explains, pointing to an elaborate window display where charmed needles are knitting piles of soft-looking and elaborately-cabled cashmere scarves. 

“A lot better than _my_ collection,” he says ruefully, as he fills her in about his efforts with the calendar.

“Maybe it felt you hadn’t tried hard enough with your snowman,” Luna suggests. Harry thinks it’s a bit rich for a magical calendar to have artistic opinions and says as much. 

“Mmm,” Luna hums, relieving him of the wool and letting him lower his arms. “But it might be about the intention, you know. So much of magic is.”

Harry is polite enough not to ask about the _intention_ behind the pile of riverstones being ransacked by the wealthy witches on the other side of the counter.

“Do you want to go ice-skating after work?”

Luna laughs delightedly. “Goodness, no,” she hugs him briefly, and offers no further explanation, wandering off into the shop to help someone who can’t reach a designer ceramic travel-cauldron on a high shelf.

Harry briefly thinks about owling Hermione to see if she wants to bring the kids to join him, but in the end decides to suffer the humiliation on his own. It turns out to be as bad as he’s expecting. The Muggle rink is crowded, and Harry clutches to the handrail around the edge of the ice, watching in dismay as tiny children zip past him with all the grace of Quidditch players. He feels like calling after them: “I’d be much better than you on a broom.”

The evening crowd is full of Christmas shoppers, and the little mulled wine cart is doing a roaring trade. Lots of people are just spectating, leaning against the barriers to watch the skaters twirl and turn. Which is how Harry comes to slide arse over tit and find himself staring up into the bemused face of Pansy Parkinson, arms laden with shopping bags.

“Not really your sport, is it Potter?” she laughs, taking a sip from her steaming cup.

Harry struggles to get his feet back underneath him, swiping ineffectually at the damp of his jeans. “Not exactly doing it by choice,” he sighs.

She narrows her eyes and gives him a very calculating smile. “No, Draco said as much. Beholden to a cursed calendar, I hear.”

Harry’s stomach does an unusual thing at the idea of Malfoy discussing him with his friends. 

Parkinson rearranges her shopping and makes to leave. “Do let us know how you get on with the mistletoe door,” she calls over her shoulder. “Enquiring minds, and all that.”

Harry’s face feels hot. He decides he’s done more than enough skating to keep the bloody calendar happy, _intention_ and all, and he’s managed to embarrass himself terribly in the process. He totters around to the benches and tugs off his skates as quickly as he can.

Back at Grimmauld Place, however, the news is not good. The third door with the skaters remains dark and foreboding. Harry feels dejected. Maybe it needed to be on a pond, like the picture. Maybe, as Luna suggested, he hasn’t been putting enough of his heart into it. Maybe he just needs the nation’s foremost Curse Breaker to actually do his job and fix the damn thing. 

Harry decides to give it one more shot before bed. He fetches his presents for Rose and Hugo and sits by the tree to wrap them. He uses rather more spellotape than is perhaps required, and the boxes come out a little lumpy and uneven, but at the end he has a pile of red and gold presents tied up neatly with bows. 

The calendar remains unimpressed.

“Sod it,” Harry mutters, as he heads up the stairs. He’s done what he can. It’s up to Malfoy now.

* * *

Prompt Seventeen:


	18. December 18th

“It’s a work day, Potter.” Malfoy barely glances at Harry before returning his attention to whatever complicated set of runes he’s sketching out on a large piece of parchment pinned to his wall.

Harry bites his tongue before he can say that _obviously_ it’s a work day, as they’re both here, _at work_. Harry, avoiding yet another useless pile of leads on the missing witch in Shropshire, and Malfoy, pacing around his office solving puzzles like some sort of sexy professor. “Yes, but I just wondered—”

“A work day,” Malfoy cuts him off, “means that I need to concentrate on a cursed sarcophagus that the British Museum thought would be appropriate to haul out of a pyramid and put on display without any wizarding input. And that I don’t have time for your Christmas ornaments.”

Harry’s shoulders slump. Maybe it’s time to call Molly and concede defeat after all. He could owl her. Then he wouldn’t need to see her sympathetic face.

Malfoy sighs. “Oh, don’t give me that…. _Salazar_ , look, I’ve already solved your little problem.” He tosses his quill down on the desk, rounding it to rummage under the top layer of papers for a book, which he passes to Harry. It looks extremely old, and he can barely make out the faded silver title: _Noël—Of Kith and Kin_.

“Chapter fourteen,” Malfoy says. “Your calendar is a binding magical contract, similar to…” he waves his hand around as if searching for an analogy. “When you put your name in the Goblet of Fire at school.”

Harry scowls at him. Malfoy’s mouth thins in a way that, if Harry didn’t know better, might almost have meant he was suppressing a grin. 

“When you lit the advent calendar at the start of the month, the contract was formed. Now you just have to complete the tasks behind each of the doors, and your run of Christmas bad luck will come to an end, your festive season will be a triumph, et cetera, et cetera.”

Harry rolls his eyes, which seems to bring Malfoy up short. “What is it?”

“Well, even a ten year old managed to work that out,” Harry says with a shrug. “I didn’t need a Curse Breaker to tell me I needed to do the tasks.” He did, of course, need a ten year old, but he doesn’t need to tell Malfoy that.

“Well, then?” Malfoy crosses his arms and looks a bit indignant. Any trace of humour is gone, and Harry wishes he could chase after it and get it back.

“There has to be more to it than that. I wore the stupid festive sweaters and the door barely glowed. Yesterday, I made a snowman, wrapped presents, _and_ I went ice-skating, and the calendar wasn’t interested in any of it.” 

Malfoy seems startled, and Harry’s momentarily glad that Parkinson obviously hasn’t had the opportunity yet to describe yesterday’s humiliating pratfall to him.

“You did _exactly_ what was in the picture?” 

“Probably not with the skating,” Harry admits. “The picture was a pond, and I went to a rink. But I wrapped presents that looked almost _exactly_ like the ones in the calendar. And, I mean, a snowman is a bloody snowman, isn’t it?!”

Malfoy taps his quill against his lower lip thoughtfully. Harry tries valiantly to tear his eyes away.

“The fulfilment condition seems to be unclear,” Malfoy concludes, more to himself than to Harry, who certainly has no idea what he’s talking about.

“Very well. Six,” Malfoy announces suddenly, striding back to his wall and scribbling a note below a line of runes.

“Excuse me?” Harry is just confused now.

“I’ll be at yours at six,” Malfoy explains slowly, as if to a small child. “Leave me be now, it’s—”

“A _work_ day, I know,” Harry cuts him off. 

He goes quickly before Malfoy can change his mind, and spends the rest of the afternoon interviewing a very confused old wizard in Telford who is convinced the missing witch is his granddaughter (she isn’t), that she’d popped by for tea yesterday (she hadn’t), and that she can currently be found working the checkout counter at the local Tesco (she can’t). Harry suspects it has rather a lot to do with the large glasses of mulled wine he keeps ladelling out of a sweet-smelling pot on the stove. “Sure I can’t tempt you with another one, Auror Potter? I have extra cinnamon sticks!”

It’s a long day, full of frustrating dead-ends, and Harry’s glad to get home. 

The ice in the hallway has definitely thinned, and is almost thawed to puddles in places, but it also definitely hasn’t gone away. Harry hopes in vain that maybe the calendar will have seen sense during the day and given him credit for yesterday’s efforts, but the pictures remain dark.

He opens the eighteenth door. Behind it there are stockings hanging above a hearth. That seems like an easy one. Item number seven-hundred-and-something on Hermione’s Christmas preparation list had been “ _Collect the family stockings from Molly_ ” so that he could hang them in advance, hiding little ‘Wheezes treats in the toes. He fire-calls her from right there in the sitting room. At least she’ll be able to see the decorated tree and not get a sense of how far behind he is on literally everything else.

“Hello, Harry dear, how are you? Oh, doesn’t the tree look marvellous!” 

_Good decision_.

“I’m well, Molly. I wanted to get the Christmas stockings so I can hang them up, if that’s okay?”

“Oh gosh, yes. Aren’t you organised? Come through, I have them here in a box. Or I can come to—”

“No, no, that’s okay, on my way,” Harry interrupts quickly, stepping through before Molly can even finish the thought. The kitchen in the Burrow is warm and smells like baking. A wreath hangs on the back door, and little star-shaped lights twinkle in the windows. For one horrible moment, Harry feels guilty that they’re _not_ having Christmas here. Maybe he _should_ give up. It’s not like he’ll be able to make Grimmauld Place feel this cozy and welcoming with only a week to go, even setting aside the fact that he’s contending with a persnickety advent calendar that seems determined to ruin his plans.

“Here you go, Harry,” Molly says, passing him a carton with “Stockings” stencilled neatly on the side. “And here’s a shepherds pie right out of the oven. And if you can wait a while, I have mince ones coming too.” 

“I can’t, sorry. I have a … colleague coming over shortly.”

Molly gives a pat on the arm. “Your love life is your own, dear. You don’t need to pretend on my account.”

Harry blushes fiercely and decides to retreat with his dignity intact rather than make any attempt to explain. 

“I hope he enjoys the pie!” he hears Molly call behind him through the Floo.

Back on his side of the hearth, Harry retrieves his stocking from the carton and hangs it from the mantle. Much like the very first Christmas sweater Molly ever knitted him, this slightly-misshapen quilted stocking fills him with a warm sense of belonging. And now, seeing it hang in his own house, a fresh sense of determination. 

Unfortunately the calendar continues to ignore him. The eighteenth space stays dark. 

Malfoy’s imperious rap on his front door shakes him out of his reverie. Malfoy hasn’t changed out of his well-fitted work uniform, which does absolutely nothing for Harry’s equilibrium. A situation that only worsens when—having stepped carefully across the last of the ice to the sitting room—Malfoy removes his outer robes and rolls up his shirtsleeves.

There’s some level on which Harry feels like he should be horrified by the sight of Malfoy’s Mark every time he sees it. But the defiant way he chooses not to hide it and the pathetic faded grey cast to it just leaves Harry feeling like it’s something long confined to the past. 

“Your Floos are working,” Malfoy notes, glaring a little at the fire. “And yet you thought I would still enjoy a walk in this weather.”

Harry grimaces. He’d truly just forgotten to let Malfoy know. Malfoy peers in at the little doors of the calendar.

“You’ve only hung one stocking,” he points out.

Harry flips open the carton, and tugs the rest out, casting to send them all to hang neatly in a row. He’s waiting for Malfoy to make some snarky remark about them, each lovingly and clearly hand-made, but he’s too focussed on the calendar. To Harry’s exasperation, the eighteenth door lights up.

“See?” Malfoy says, as if it’s obvious and Harry is a simpleton. “You’re just not being precise enough. Magic has rules. A binding magical contract is nothing but a set of rules.”

“Fine,” Harry huffs, “but what about the presents?” 

Malfoy eyes the picture behind the seventeenth door carefully, and then looks at Harry’s little stack of gifts, which, admittedly, look a little lumpier than he remembered from yesterday.

“Did you wrap these with your toes?”

“Hey! I—”

Before Harry even gets a chance to object, Malfoy has whipped out his wand and cast at the pile. The paper flies off the gifts, irons itself flat, and re-wraps itself around the boxes in crisp creases and orderly folds. It’s very impressive: both the casting _and_ the end result.

Harry’s stupid calendar seems to agree, brightly shining from door seventeen.

“Precision, Potter. That’s all there is to it.” Malfoy says, tucking his wand away, a satisfied tone to his voice.

“Alright, alright, you’re very clever. That’s two down. There’s enough of a drift by the back hedge probably, if it hasn’t melted today,” he heads for the hall before he realises Malfoy isn’t making any move to follow him.

“What?”

Malfoy tilts his head and stares at Harry as if he’s grown an extra one. “I’m not helping you _build a snowman, Potter_.”

“Oh.” Harry tries very hard not to let his disappointment show on his face. 

Malfoy’s expression does something complicated, and his ears turn that shade of pink that Harry’s seen only once before. 

“It’s a _snowman_ , Potter. Make it look like the picture. Even a ten year old can probably manage it. You don’t need a _Curse Breaker_ for that.”

And before Harry can say anything, Malfoy has picked up his robes, reached for the Floo powder and is gone, leaving Harry with nothing but the sparking embers and the aroma of uneaten shepherds pie.

* * *

Prompt Eighteen:


	19. December 19th

On Thursday, Harry decides to take emergency measures and owls in sick. He figures with a bit of determination he can knock off the calendar’s demands, finish his Christmas preparations, and be back at work the next morning. It’s an ornament; it won’t get the better of him, magically binding contract or not.

He carefully studies the picture of the little ice skaters as if it were one of his crime scenes. A man and woman are on a frozen pond surrounded by tall trees, holding hands as they turn in a circle. Harry feels slightly annoyed that appeasing a calendar seems to mean he has to pretend to be straight, but he reckons he’s got this one beat. 

“Come ice-skating with me,” he says as soon as Ginny answers her Floo. The good thing about Ginny is that she’s pretty much up for any physical activity at any time when she’s not training, and she doesn’t ask a lot of questions.

“The rink in Liverpool?”

“No, it needs to be a pond.” Harry’s made that mistake once, he’s going to be extremely careful this time.

“There’s one near the Burrow,” Ginny says, already wrapping a scarf around her neck. “Meet you there and we can ransack the back shed for skates.”

Molly seems extremely confused at their unscheduled arrival, but Ginny takes it in her stride. “Harry’s working on something for one of his cases, and Coach says I need to cross-train my quads. We’ll be back before lunch.” 

Sure enough, there in Arthur’s shed, high on a back shelf above a disassembled record player and the remains of what might once have been chainsaw, Ginny and Harry find several pairs of ice skates hanging from a hook. 

“You can fill me in any time, you know,” Ginny grins at him, as they dust off some old brooms usually used for summer family Quidditch. They fly low over the snow-covered fields side-by-side as Harry confesses about his so-far wretched attempts to get ready for Christmas. 

Ginny laughs as she leads him into land by a small copse of trees. “I don’t know why you’re bothering. I’d rather claw my eyes out than have Luna and I host. So much work, and for what? So Mum can say that your stuffing was a ‘ _very good try_ ’? I certainly wouldn’t fight a cursed advent calendar for it.”

“It’s not a curse,” Harry finds himself mumbling, before he thinks better of it.

The little pond looks like something out of a Christmas card, surrounded by snow-covered trees with a thick layer of ice. It seems exactly right. Ginny adjusts their skates with her wand, casting off the rust and sharpening the blades. Harry is certainly no more confident than he had been in London and without a rail to hang on to, slips and falls far more often, to Ginny’s absolute delight. 

“We should have put a bubble charm on you before we started, like when we coach the Little Harpies over the summer!” 

Harry sighs, disgruntled, but lets her pull him up to his feet again. “We need to hold hands.”

Ginny bursts into peals of laughter. “I hope you mean for balance, because I feel like that ship has sailed for both of us.”

Harry would elbow her in the ribs, but he knows he’d just fall down again. “We need to hold hands _for the calendar_.”

“Well, that’s a bit bloody heteronormative, isn’t it?” Ginny asks, but she’s still laughing, taking both his gloved hands in her own and turning them in a gentle circle. “There you go. Curse broken!”

Unfortunately, when they Apparate back to Grimmauld Place, they find the calendar doesn’t agree. 

“Seriously, Harry,” Ginny pats him on the arm sympathetically. “It’s a losing battle. Just tell Mum when you take the skates back that you’d rather come to hers after all. She’ll be delighted.”

She gives him a hug and disappears through the Floo. 

Harry stares glumly at the calendar. The little picture behind the second door looks _exactly_ like the pond he’d just been skidding over. And they’d held hands _exactly_ like the couple depicted.

“What is it that you _want_?” he sighs, exasperated.

 _It might be about the intention, you know_ , he hears Luna’s voice in his head.

 _You’re not being precise enough_ , says an imaginary Malfoy.

Harry looks again at the happily skating couple, and has a sudden epiphany.

“Ministry of Magic,” he yells at the fireplace, practically leaping into the Floo.

“I thought you were sick,” Padma says, startled, when he barrels out the other end and nearly knocks her and her coffee cup over. 

“I am. I was. I might have solved it though,” Harry says excitedly, striding toward the lifts.

“The witch in Shropshire?” Padma calls after him, confused.

“No! The magic of Christmas!”

Malfoy and Sato are not in their office, and the reception witch tells Harry that they’re in the field. Undeterred, he cajoles the coordinates from her, and Apparates straight to the foot of the London Eye. He finds the pair of them disguised as Muggle police officers, their heads bent together over something that appears to have been uncovered in the course of roadworks. There's a sort of ripple in the air, evidence of a targeted Disillusionment Charm keeping them from being visible to the Muggle tourists around them.

“I worked it out!” Harry announces from behind them.

Sato drops her wand, and lets out a little gasp. Malfoy just rolls his eyes.

“The thing about breaking curses, Auror Potter, is that it is often delicate work. You’d do well to perhaps not careen into people’s workspaces like the clodhopper you are, unless you’d like to add an ancient Roman fertility curse to your list of woes?”

Sato levitates the artefact they were working on—a small statue of a wolf—and says quietly, “I’ll take this to the Ministry.”

Malfoy nods and she edges past Harry as if she’s carrying a live grenade and leaves.

“You need to come ice-skating with me,” Harry announces, undeterred.

“I...what?” Malfoy looks surprised, and then exasperated. “ _Merlin_ , not this again.”

“No, you don’t understand. I did what you said. I did _exactly_ what you said. I looked at every detail in the picture and I recreated it as precisely as possible. On a pond. With a woman.”

“Spare me the—”

“The calendar knew I was faking!” Harry feels triumphant. He’s sure he’s right about this.

“Being able to skate?” Malfoy looks baffled.

“I’m _gay._ ” 

Harry's words seem to ricochet off the edges of the disillusioned space into the silence that follows. All he can hear is the Muggle tourists chattering to each other as they wait in the nearby queue. It’s not a secret of course, and he’s sure that Malfoy _knows_ this, but it’s not like they’ve ever discussed it.

“Do you want congratulations of some sort?” Malfoy says, after an awkward minute.

“No, you daft prat. I want you to come ice-skating with me. The calendar cares about _intention_. You said it yourself. It’s a set of rules I have to follow, so it doesn’t work if I’m not doing it properly. I need to ice-skate with a bloke.”

Malfoy’s mouth falls open. He seems at a total loss for words, which Harry realises is _very_ rarely the case. Maybe he should have come up with a better way to phrase this.

“And you think,” Malfoy manages finally, regaining his composure, “that this _bloke_ should be me.”

Harry nods vigorously. “Obviously, yes. You already know about the calendar. And it can’t be Ron or any of his brothers because I can’t let them know what’s going on with the Christmas plans. And all of my other friends are women, basically. Except Nev, but he's too busy closing up the Hogwarts’ greenhouses for the break. And Dean and Seamus have gone to Ireland for Christmas. And ….”

“And so I’m last on your list,” Malfoy concludes, his expression closing in.

Harry wants to say that he’s very much _first_ on the list, that he’d literally forgotten all the people he just listed were even _alive_ until right now, but he can’t confess to that _either_ , and so he needs to convince Malfoy to help based on the puzzle alone.

“There’s a pond near the Burrow, and I have skates I borrowed from the Weasleys. It’s an hour out of your day, maximum. And you get to prove your theory right about the calendar. Surely you can turn that into some dusty journal article afterwards. It’s a win-win.”

Malfoy rubs at his eye tiredly with the heel of his hand. Then he stares at Harry for a long moment. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking, which is true basically all of the time. 

“There’s a pond at the Manor, and I’ll use my _own_ skates. Absolutely none of this will appear in any article, and you won’t tell anyone about it either. Are we clear?”

Harry’s heart soars. “One hundred percent. Crystal. Thank you.”

If you’d told Harry that the first time he’d be back at Malfoy Manor after the war he’d be jumping up and down to keep warm in a snow-covered rose garden waiting for Draco Malfoy to find his ice-skates he’d have told you you were barking, but that seems to be the situation Harry finds himself in.

Malfoy emerges from the conservatory having changed out of his Muggle police uniform, wearing a thick wool jacket and black jeans, a dark grey toque covering his bright blonde hair. He looks lean and athletic, and Harry’s suddenly sure it’s going to be even more difficult than usual for him to keep his balance on skates. 

Sure enough, Harry’s first few steps are tentative and shaky, while Malfoy shoots off across the pond like he’s trying out for the Olympics, showing off with a swift little series of turns. It’s mesmerising.

“Right,” Malfoy says, sliding to a stop beside Harry and showering him with an obnoxious spray of ice. "Before you hurt yourself, what do we need to do?"

Harry hadn’t thought about this bit, and he feels his face flame. “We … uh … we need to hold hands.” 

“Excuse me?” Malfoy looks at him as if he’s misheard.

“Hold _hands_. Turn in a circle. _Godric_ , it won’t kill you.” Harry grits out, mortified.

Malfoy’s shoulders slump for a second, as if defeated, but then he squares up, offering both his hands out to Harry without another word.

Harry takes them, unable to look Malfoy in the face and concentrating instead on the buttery soft leather and complicated stitching of his gloves. Malfoy turns them both in a slow glide and Harry very much wants the ice to crack open and swallow him, so that he doesn’t have to think about the crisp scent of Malfoy’s cologne or just how close the pale skin of his cheek is. Then he makes the mistake of looking up, and decides it’s Malfoy’s wintery eyes that are absolutely going to be the death of him.

“That should do it,” Malfoy announces, a little too loudly for the serene surroundings, dropping Harry’s grip quickly and skating backwards a few feet. Harry feels like his breathing is suddenly too loud and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

“Let’s get these skates off and check,” Malfoy calls over his shoulder, all-business as he glides swiftly back to the bank.

It takes Harry rather a lot longer to totter after him, and he’s glad of the opportunity to collect himself.

The awkwardness and embarrassment is totally worth it, however, when they Apparate back to Grimmauld Place and the ice is gone from the front hall and the second door of the calendar is brightly lit. Quite a bit more brightly than the others, but Harry’s not going to point that out now.

“It worked!” Harry claps Malfoy on the back, delighted, and then crouches down to run his hand over the dry, undamaged floorboards. Even Malfoy seems pleased, allowing himself just the smallest of smiles.

“Yes, well. Well done. Good luck with your Christmas and so on,” he says in a rush, reaching for the Floo powder.

“No, wait! What about the rest! The snowman, and the house lights, and the….” Harry trails off before the word “mistletoe” can escape his lips.

Malfoy glances at the ceiling as if praying for strength. “Some of us have work to do, Potter.”

That’s not a “no”, Harry realises, and presses his luck. “Tomorrow, then. It’s Friday. You can bunk off early, and we can do the last few. It’s only a handful of things. Please?”

Malfoy glances at the calendar and back at Harry, and then to Harry’s enormous relief, nods with a long-suffering sigh.

* * *

Prompt Nineteen:


	20. December 20th

It takes until mid-afternoon on Friday before Harry can convince Malfoy to leave work. Harry’s fourth memo politely encouraging Malfoy to put down his wand for the day limps back to his desk, wing folded at an unusual angle. Fortunately, Malfoy is not far behind. Unfortunately, he’s out of uniform, so Harry’s forced to contend with his very smart pea coat and those dark jeans again. He wants to point and say helplessly to Padma, “do you see what I’m dealing with here?” But she’s studiously concentrating on transcribing a witness statement and doesn’t seem all that interested in how good Malfoy looks.

“Come on then,” he says to Harry, tapping at his watch as if Harry hasn’t been waiting on _him_ all day. Harry’s not about to complain, however, or do anything at all that might jeopardise Malfoy’s assistance, so he just gathers his coat and scarf and dashes after him to the Floos.

Back at Grimmauld Place, Harry shows Malfoy the new doors that he’s opened on the calendar. A flaming Christmas pudding is behind the nineteenth door, and two glasses of mulled wine behind the twentieth.

“Hmm,” Malfoy muses, pulling a notebook from his coat pocket and scribbling something inside it. “Alcohol and fire seem like a terrible place to start, given your recent misfortune. We’ll begin with the snowman.”

They find Kreacher in the kitchen, home early for the weekend. Harry watches, astounded, as the wizened little elf takes a tray of freshly-baked mince pies from the oven. They smell amazing, which is very rarely the case with Kreacher’s cooking.

Kreacher’s whole countenance perks up when he sees Malfoy, and he greets him with a grovelling, “Master of the House of Black,” that makes Harry roll his eyes. Harry waits for Malfoy to be rude or dismissive, the way his father would have been, but he just compliments Kreacher on his baking and asks whether the house has a spade. Kreacher practically trips over himself to show Malfoy a cupboard by the back door that Harry’s never paid any attention to, which seems to be stocked with moth-eaten-looking winter cloaks, Wellington boots, and yes, garden implements.

“I’d have thought you knew some snow-sculpting spell,” Harry jokes, as they head into the overgrown back garden. Harry’s sort of glad it’s covered in a blanket of fresh snow, so that the true extent of his lack of maintenance isn’t obvious. He expects a bit of a lecture about the elemental properties of liquids and solids and how snow doesn’t respond to certain kinds of formative magic or something. But instead Malfoy just shrugs.

“Some things are better by hand.”

Harry chokes a little and tries to disguise it with a cough. 

Fortunately, Harry’s first effort has long since collapsed, leaving nothing but a lonely-looking carrot poking out of a nearby drift. Together, they attack the bank of snow, digging it up into a mound and then crouching to pat and shape it into more of a body shape.

“Aren’t we supposed to make balls?” Harry asks, thinking about the picture in the calendar, three perfect white snow-orbs stacked one on top of the other. This time it’s Malfoy who lets out a strangled laugh.

“I think that only happens in cartoons,” Malfoy says. “Or when you’re working with snow that isn’t thirty percent sleet and London pollution.” 

It’s certainly easier with two of them, and before long they have a decent snow-person-shape, standing several feet high. Malfoy bends over to stick in the carrot nose, and Harry has to shove his hands in his pockets to keep from dropping a handful of snow down the back of his coat collar. It’s the sort of thing he’d do to Ron. The sort of thing he might do to Malfoy, if their relationship was different. If this were really the festive-fun date depicted in the calendar. Harry gets lost for a minute in the idea of knocking Malfoy into the snow and kissing him senseless.

“Are you alright, Potter? You look queasy.”

Actual Malfoy is staring at him, hand out for the scarf Harry’s holding. He passes it over quickly, and assures Malfoy he’s fine. 

With the scarf, carrot nose, and some coals for eyes, the snowman looks—if not exactly picturesque—passably like the one in the calendar. Inside by the sitting room fire, Harry’s relieved to find the calendar agrees. Not only is the fifteenth door glowing happily, but the room feels warm, and Harry’s pile of Christmas crackers—cheap and tacky when he’d bought them from the corner store—seem to have transformed. There’s now three times as many of them, more than enough for the whole family, decorated with holly and tied at each end with red ribbons.

“This is fantastic,” Harry enthuses, clapping his icy hands together to warm them up. “What’s next?”

Malfoy also seems satisfied, scribbling notes in his little book. He taps the twelfth door with his quill. “What happened here?”

The picture is of the family wearing matching Christmas outfits, and the light emanating from it still seems at half-strength.

“Best guess? I was wearing the lame Christmas clothing it foisted on me, but no one else was.”

Malfoy levels Harry with a look that would reduce lesser men to dust, but Harry’s already convinced him to swing him around on ice skates. Anything is possible.

“Wait here,” he says, dashing from the room and taking the stairs two at a time. The absolute last thing he needs is Malfoy seeing how grim his living arrangements are. But to Harry’s shock and surprise, the upper floors of Grimmauld Place feel almost … _cozy_. The icy draft that disrupted his sleep a week ago is long gone. Low fires burn in each of the bedrooms that he pokes his head into. There’s even long strings of tinsel wound in amongst the bannisters. Kreacher must have been decorating.

Harry pulls the first two garish jumpers he can find from his closet and bounds back down the stairs. He passes Malfoy a bright green one covered in candy canes, and receives exactly the look he’s expecting. He pulls a bright red one with reindeer on it over his own head.

“They’re supposed to match,” Malfoy points out, still holding his at arms’ length, as if it might bite him. 

“You’re always telling me _I_ forget I’m wizard,” Harry laughs, waving his wand at Malfoy’s jumper until it looks the same as his own.

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone seem more offended by a piece of clothing, but nevertheless Malfoy valiantly shrugs out of his smart coat and pulls the misshapen garment on. Harry’s a little bit horrified to discover that Malfoy still does it for him dressed like one of Santa’s elves.

“How long do we—”

“There!” Harry points at the calendar in triumph as the weak light flares and strengthens. Better yet, when he glances down, his festive-wear is back to being one of his favourite hoodies. Unfortunately Malfoy’s now wearing one of Molly’s famous knitted creations: several sizes too large for him and with an enormous yellow H on the front.

Malfoy plucks at it for a moment, incredulous, and then quickly tugs it off, handing it to Harry, smoothing his hair and looking flushed. Harry tries very hard not to examine the feeling he’s having about Malfoy wearing his clothes.

“House lights,” he says, pointing at the sixteenth door and desperate to think about something else. “Only I don’t have any, or a ladder.”

"Surely as Saviour of the Wizarding World and five-times Witch Weekly Bachelor of the Year you can light up a room wherever you go?" Malfoy gives him a wry smile, and Harry’s too startled by the joke to attempt any kind of a witty comeback.

“We could go to B&Q and buy some?”

“A house as old as Grimmauld will have its own lights,” Malfoy says confidently, calling for Kreacher. “I remember them from visiting my dreadful old Great Aunt as a child.”

Kreacher pops into the room entirely more promptly than he ever does when Harry calls him, and confirms that yes, the Grimmauld Place Christmas lights can be found in the attic. “Kreacher will fetch them for Master,” he says, disappearing immediately, and returning with an old wooden chest.

Malfoy takes it from him and heads out the front door, Harry on his heels. It’s fully dark outside now, and Harry realises his neighbours have already been decorating. An inflatable Santa bobs eerily in the front yard next door, and strings of lights hang from the bare branches of the apple tree on the other side. 

“See? You’re letting the street down, Potter,” Malfoy teases, as he kneels and opens the chest.

“Not like any of them can see it,” Harry points out.

Malfoy waves his wand. Dozens and dozens of tiny orbs, no larger than snitches, start to fly out of the chest and up into the sky. They swoop and arrange themselves, following the direction of Malfoy’s spell in regimented little lines, settling themselves on the eaves and windowsills of the house. Harry watches in awe as Malfoy’s spell sends a fresh wave up to the roofline, and another batch to rest in the branches of his front hedge. And then with a final flourish, Malfoy mutters one last incantation, and every single one of the orbs blinks into life, glowing like fireflies.

The effect is breathtaking. Harry stares at his house in wonder, lit from ridge to foundation, like something out of a movie. He clutches at Malfoy’s arm, unable to help himself. “It’s _beautiful_.”

Malfoy smiles at him. A genuine, pleased smile, his cheeks pink in the cold. 

“The neighbours might not be able to see,” he says quietly, “but we’ll know it’s here.”

Harry very much wants to kiss him. He finds himself staring at Malfoy's mouth and almost starts to lean in a little, but Malfoy’s expression clouds and he steps away. 

“And so will the calendar. Let’s check!” Malfoy adds abruptly, dashing back up the front steps. 

Harry waits a moment, both to let his disappointment settle and to take another look at his beautifully decorated house. Everything about it is magnificent. Malfoy’s magic, the delicate arrangement, how festive it all looks.

When he comes back inside, the sixteenth door is lit, and the fire is roaring happily. Malfoy seems to have regained his composure. Harry wonders if he should say something. Apologise maybe, or just confess all the ridiculous messy feelings inside him that threaten to spill out. 

“Mulled wine?” he offers instead, though he has no idea where he’s going to get some at this hour.

“I think that’s enough of the Labours of Hercules for one day, Potter,” Malfoy says, tucking his notebook away and preparing to leave.

Harry feels crestfallen, like he’s ruined something important. 

But then Malfoy adds quickly, “Save the mulled wine for tomorrow,” and Harry dares to let himself hope again. “We’ll need it if you think you’re going to get me to sing Christmas carols in public.”

Malfoy’s through the Floo and gone before Harry can say anything further, leaving him to head upstairs to bed pondering where he’s going to get mulled wine, a Christmas pudding, and perhaps most crucially, some mistletoe the next day. Harry falls asleep thinking about Christmas lights, the cold sensation of snow under his hand, and Malfoy in one of Molly’s jumpers. It’s the best night’s sleep he’s had all month.

* * *

Prompt Twenty:


	21. December 21st

Christmas has definitely come to Grimmauld Place, finally.

Harry’s delighted to find that the house is toasty warm, with decorations hanging from every portrait and curtain rod. He finds Kreacher in the kitchen to thank him for all his hard work, but the grumpy little elf just pulls a face at him and goes back to the hams he’s preparing. 

Harry asks about breakfast, and gets one shrivelled finger pointed in the direction of the coffee pot.

Maybe Christmas hasn’t quite reached Kreacher, yet.

The Floo roars into life before Harry’s even finished pouring a cup, and Malfoy strides out of the flames, looking far too put-together for whatever time of the morning it is. Harry tugs his ratty bathrobe closed and asks for a moment to change. When he comes back down to the kitchen having dressed and collected himself, he’s appalled to find Kreacher serving Malfoy a full English breakfast.

“Where’s mine?” he yelps in Kreacher’s general direction, as the rebellious elf vanishes into the pantry and refuses to answer.

“I assumed you’d eaten, Potter,” Malfoy says apologetically, _Accio_ -ing another plate and forking some slices of bacon and toast onto it. “Here, we’ll share.”

Harry is extremely torn between wanting to swing Kreacher around by the ears and wanting to sit beside Malfoy and _share his breakfast_ , but obviously the latter wins out. 

“I took the liberty of opening today’s door while you were upstairs. It’s a couple sledding.”

Harry figures he has less chance of injuring himself sledding than he did while skating, but the idea of being pressed up against Malfoy on a sled is a difficult one to cope with.

Malfoy seems unfazed. “I thought we could go back to the Manor. There’s a hill behind the stables that I went sledding on as a child, that should suffice.”

Harry nods, concentrating firmly on his toast. “Ron serves Christmas pud at the Lion as part of his pub lunch at the moment. We could go there and knock off number nineteen. Mulled wine as well.”

Malfoy finishes eating and lays his cutlery neatly on the plate. “Very well, and then we’ll face down the carolling horror.”

Neither of them mention the mistletoe.

The Manor looks stunning, blanketed in last night's fresh snowfall. Harry wonders what it’s like for Malfoy to come here. If his own memories of the place are as tarnished as Harry’s own.

“Are you living here, then?” he asks, realising he’s never turned his mind to it.

“ _Salazar_ , no,” Malfoy snorts, unwarding the doors to the stables. “I have a townhouse in Chelsea. Mother won’t leave though, despite … everything.”

Harry wants to ask after Narcissa, to see if maybe the polite thing to do would be to go inside, however much he doesn’t really want to, but Malfoy is already at the back wall of the stable, casting to levitate an ornate wooden sled down from where it hangs high on brass hooks. Harry follows him back out into the bright winter day, their boots leaving deep prints as they stomp up the small hill.

“My father never saw the point of this when I was a child,” Malfoy says, tugging the sled behind him. “ _You have a perfectly good broom_ , he used to say. _Absolutely no reason to slide down hills on your behind._ ”

Harry snorts. He can absolutely imagine Lucius ruining whatever small sparks of joy Malfoy might have found when he was young.

At the top of the hill, Malfoy expands the sled so that it’s large enough for the two of them. They both spend an awkward minute staring at it, as if neither really wants to commit to how they’re going to do this, before Malfoy lets out an exasperated sigh and settles in the back. “My legs are longer,” he mutters, by way of explanation.

Harry bites down whatever response he might have had to that, and concentrates on fitting himself into the front of the sled, mentally cursing the calendar, Grimmauld Place, and every single decision that led him to this point. Malfoy’s legs are warm where they bracket Harry’s hips and Harry’s suddenly, absurdly glad that Malfoy can’t see his face, which is surely an absolute flaming red.

Before he can think too much about how uncomfortable he is, Malfoy has shoved off and they careen down the short slope, icy air refreshingly like a slap to the face. It’s a freeing feeling, like being on a broom but somehow different. But all Harry can think about is the last time they were pressed together like this, speeding from danger, surrounded by fire instead of snow. 

The sled glides to a halt in front of the stable, and Malfoy wriggles around behind him, clambering out.

“Should we go again, to make sure?” Malfoy asks.

Harry stares up at him, ruddy-cheeked and tall. Capable and successful and safe and so very alive. It’s hard to imagine how close they’d come to everything being different all those years ago.

“Yes,” Harry hears himself saying, over the noisy rush of his heart pounding in his ears. “We should make sure.”

They slide down the hill twice more, toppling on the third attempt into a laughing heap in the snow. When they get back to Grimmauld Place, the twenty-first door is brightly lit.

“Well, we’ve earned lunch,” Harry decides, dragging Malfoy into the Floo to the Red Lion before he can disagree.

Harry hadn’t thought to warn Ron in advance that he was bringing Malfoy, which seems like a colossal error in judgement once Ron catches a glimpse of him and gives Harry the smuggest grin he’s ever seen in his life.

 _Don’t_ , Harry mouths, waving his hand urgently at Ron behind Malfoy’s back, but fortunately Malfoy seems too distracted taking in his surroundings to notice. They settle in at a back corner table near the fire and Harry asks Ron for two roast lunches with Christmas pudding.

“And mulled wine,” Malfoy adds.

“Festive,” Ron responds knowingly, his grin getting impossibly wider.

“It’s not….” Harry starts to protest, but then he realises he’s not really sure how he’s going to finish that sentence, and Ron has winked at him and disappeared off to the bar in any event.

Harry realises he’s still steeling himself for some sort of complaint out of Malfoy. Something about the faded decor of the little pub, or a snide remark about Ron not amounting to much. But instead Malfoy eats his food happily, compliments the waiter on the mulled wine, and seems altogether too comfortable with his long legs stretched out in front of the fire. It’s a moment Harry desperately wants to preserve.

Ron brings out the Christmas pudding and a little jug of brandy. 

“I’ll do it,” Malfoy insists, taking the jug. “Your luck might have improved, Potter, but let’s not risk Weasley’s livelihood.” 

He pours the brandy and casts a little flame and the pudding catches fire with a whooshing sound and a pretty blue light that burns for a moment before extinguishing exactly as intended. The dessert is delicious, and Harry would happily just sit there for the afternoon, drinking mulled wine with one of Malfoy’s knees pressed against his under the table, but they have two more dragons to slay.

“Carols,” he says glumly. 

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Malfoy says, leaning in conspiratorially. “It will be a lot easier with children. Then we won’t sound quite as off-key.”

Harry agrees immediately, having already promised Rose she could help, and Malfoy goes through the Floo to fetch Teddy from Andromeda’s to join them.

“We should do _Joy to the World_ ,” Teddy says decisively, “because Rose and I practised it at school and we know all the words.”

“Let’s sing to Aunties Ginny and Luna,” Rose enthuses. “They _love_ carols.”

Harry glances across at Malfoy, expecting him to shoot down the idea of serenading Harry’s ex-girlfriend immediately, but he just shrugs. “They’ll be a sympathetic audience,” he sighs. “Other wizards will recognise us, and Muggles will probably just have us arrested for crimes against Christmas.”

Which is how the four of them find themselves on the steps of Ginny and Luna’s flat, belting out an incredibly out-of-tune number that does not feel like “repeating sounding joy” at all.

Luna is absolutely delighted, clapping and singing along with them. Ginny looks like she might be about to have a stroke from trying so hard not to laugh. Fortunately it is over very quickly, and they get ushered inside for a hot drink and some gingerbread men.

“That was really something,” Ginny says wonderingly, tipping a slug of firewhisky into Harry’s mug before she passes it over. He pokes his tongue out at her and takes it gratefully.

They sit and warm up for a moment, the children chattering excitedly about their Christmas plans and what gifts they’re hoping to get. Malfoy and Luna get lost in a conversation about some new potion she’s working on, and Harry excuses himself to use the loo. He glances in at the bedroom as he passes it, admiring the brightly-decorated little Christmas tree at the foot of the bed, and the soft folded rugs hanging neatly against the wall. The two of them have made such a home for themselves together here. It makes something ache in Harry’s chest.

Malfoy and Harry return their young charges to their respective homes and head back to Grimmauld Place. To Harry’s delight and relief, the doors for all the days are now lit except one. More than that, the house feels incredible. Warm aromas float up from the kitchen, and decorative lanterns have appeared on the hall table. The sofa has a Christmas-themed throw rug Harry’s never seen before tossed over the back, and several cute reindeer-trimmed cushions. And there, above the doorway in the sitting room, tied with a red ribbon, is a bunch of mistletoe.

The mood immediately changes.

“Muggles used to think mistletoe would protect them from witches,” Malfoy says quietly, staring up at it.

“No witches here,” Harry points out, stepping closer.

Malfoy’s expression is absolutely impassive. Harry searches for any sign to figure out what he’s thinking. If this makes him horribly uncomfortable, or if he feels trapped into this in some way, but there’s nothing.

“Can I—”

“Oh, get on with it, Potter,” Malfoy huffs out in a half-laugh and closes the distance, pressing their lips together.

It’s not much of a kiss, not much more than a peck, but it steals all of Harry’s breath away anyway. He looks into Malfoy’s eyes, so impossibly close, and Malfoy seems just as taken aback. Harry reaches up slowly, sliding one hand into his hair, and kisses him again, properly.

When he draws back this time, the calendar is a sparkling array of light.

“We did it,” Harry murmurs, unwilling to let Malfoy go. He leans in again, but is stopped by a palm soft against his chest.

“Don’t,” Malfoy says quietly, his expression suddenly bereft.

Harry’s heart sinks. 

“Don’t what?”

“You can’t keep doing this,” Malfoy says, stepping back and straightening his shirt, smoothing at his hair as if he’s trying to put his armour back in place. “It isn’t fair.”

Harry feels all at sea. “ _What_ isn’t fair? You have to know how I feel about you. I—”

“I know how you feel about me, Potter,” Malfoy says with a sad little laugh. “ _Everyone_ knows how you feel about me. But let’s be honest, you haven’t thought any of this through. It’s all very charming when it’s just the Saviour with a little crush, but it’s not like anything _real_ is possible.”

Harry’s cheeks flame at the idea that everyone has noticed his infatuation, but this is too important to him now and he presses on.

“Of course it’s possible, I—”

“Potter, every single person we work with tolerates me only because I am _exceptional_ at my job. They put up with my history, they overlook my lineage, solely because I give them absolutely _no_ cause for complaint. I cling to my “ _redemption_ ”, every day, by the very thinnest of threads.”

Harry wants to protest, because that’s nonsense. Everyone thinks Malfoy is a bloody genius, they’re always telling him so.

“I’ve done everything I can to keep you at arms’ length. And you just crash about the place, barrelling into my office, bringing me my favourite pastries and telling me I’m _the cleverest person you know_ —as if that wouldn’t completely undo me. Expecting me to play boyfriends with you to appease this ancient tyrant of a calendar you’ve got yourself knotted up with, and at the end of it all you’ll sit down to your family lunch and where will I be? Exactly nowhere. Because I can’t risk _everything_ I’ve worked so hard for on the off-chance your ridiculous holiday crush lasts more than a season.” 

Harry’s speechless. Malfoy seems to take pity on him, placing gentle hands on his upper arms. 

“I think you’ve forgotten who I am, Harry,” he says sadly. “I keep rolling up my sleeves to show you, but it’s like you think it doesn’t matter.”

 _It doesn’t matter_ , Harry thinks fiercely, but his throat feels thick, and Malfoy— _Draco_ —is using his first name, and he can’t get the words out.

“Your friends, and your family, and your colleagues— _our_ colleagues—they’ll disagree. If they thought for one moment you were serious about me.”

Draco leans in and presses a soft parting kiss to Harry’s cheek. 

“I’ll help you with the remaining doors, Harry. But that’s it.”

And before Harry can muster any kind of a protest, he’s gone.

* * *

Prompt Twenty-One:


	22. December 22nd

On Sunday, it’s as if the calendar is conspiring against him in a new way. The picture behind the little door is of a lone figure donating gifts to charity, no couple to be seen at all. Harry scowls at it, considers lying, and then gives up and owls Draco to say that he’s not needed.

He doesn’t get a reply.

Kreacher is clattering around in the kitchen and seems surprised to find Harry’s on his own.

“Is that bacon?” Harry asks hopefully.

“No,” Kreacher says, vanishing the contents of the pan before Harry can catch a glimpse of it. It certainly _smelled_ like bacon, Harry thinks glumly, pouring himself a cup of coffee instead.

Still, he can’t hold it against the little elf for long, because the Grimmauld kitchen is absolutely laden with preparations for Wednesday. Christmas cakes sit wrapped on a shelf side-by-side with bowls of stuffing under preserving charms. A dressed turkey takes up most of the space in the fridge and there are crates of peeled vegetables in the pantry. 

“This is amazing,” Harry says, as he looks around taking it all in, but Kreacher ignores him, disappearing upstairs under a towering pile of linen napkins.

Still, it _is_ amazing. With Draco’s help, the house now feels ready. Harry just has to make sure he is too. He unfolds Hermione’s list and looks it over. Unbelievably, it’s almost complete. Harry wishes that filled him with a greater sense of satisfaction than it seems to, but moping over Draco for the day definitely isn’t going to help.

He refolds the list and tucks it away, before Flooing to the Red Lion where he finds Ron behind the bar, getting ready to open for Sunday lunch. 

“I’m supposed to borrow extra glasses,” Harry says, pulling up a stool.

“Oh, yeah. Remember that year George thought he could just transfigure things into extra glasses and Audrey wound up holding a sock with red wine dripping all down her dress?”

Harry doesn’t actually. The wide variety of ways in which George has managed to cut corners with less than stellar results over the years tend to blur together. He laughs anyway. It falls flat.

“What’s up?” Ron asks, stopping wiping down the bar to focus more completely on him. “Calendar still giving you grief?”

“No,” Harry sighs. “Draco— _Malfoy_ , I mean—helped me with it yesterday. It seems happy enough.”

Ron grins. “Draco _Malfoy_ _you mean_?”

“Don’t. Look, I know everyone is apparently _very_ aware of my crush on Malfoy….”

Ron gives him a strange look. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“What do you mean?” Harry asks, confused.

Ron puts down his cleaning cloth and leans forward on the bar, his expression kind. “Look, mate. You haven’t wanted to talk about this all year unless you’re deep in your cups, and I’ve respected that. Malfoy was a colossal prat in school, and I’m sure it’s been deeply embarrassing for you to fall in love with him. But let’s not underplay it by calling it a _crush_.”

Harry’s mouth falls open in shock. 

“Oh, give over,” Ron snorts. “You’re not as subtle as you think you are, you know. I mean, Hermione noticed first, obviously. But with the way you’re always muttering about his _exquisite magic_ and his _elaborate casting_ and his bloody cardigans, I reckon I wouldn’t have been far behind.” He laughs. “Even Mum keeps asking about when you’re going to bring him to family lunch.”

“She … You don’t think she’d _mind_?” 

Ron shrugs. “She’d like him a damn sight more than she would’ve enjoyed _Claude_.” He manages to inject more revulsion into his fake-French pronunciation of the name than Harry thinks is entirely necessary, but Harry’s brain is still looping on the idea that his family all think he’s arse over tit for Malfoy.

“She killed his Aunt,” Harry points out.

“His Aunt was a psychotic bitch,” Ron counters. “Malfoy was just a kid.”

He gives Harry a long, serious look. “We all were, mate.” 

Ron reaches under the bar and lifts up a wire rack packed with glasses and Harry takes it, lost in thought. 

“I thought we’d have some drinks here on Tuesday night. Ginny and Luna, see if Nev’s around.” Ron says as Harry walks back to the fireplace. “You should bring him.” 

_Have to convince him first_ , thinks Harry, as he balances the rack carefully on his hip and heads through the Floo.

Kreacher sniffs a little at the utilitarian pub glassware, but seems pleased that at least they now have enough. He’s somehow managed to extend the dining table in the formal room Harry never uses, and it looks positively regal, covered in crisp white linen embroidered with little ivy leaves. 

“Needs flowers,” Kreacher says, pointing imperiously at the empty centerpiece.

“Next on my list,” Harry assures him, and heads for Diagon Alley.

Luna readily agrees to leave her store—where there seems to be a tense stand-off taking place over who gets to purchase the last of some Icelandic wooden bowls—to accompany Harry to the florist’s cart. 

“Poinsettias, obviously,” she says, pointing at the red flowers. “And Amaryllis. Those lilies are traditional for Muggles in the Southern Hemisphere, but Nev got them growing in his inverted greenhouse this year, so you should get some of those too.”

Harry asks the florist to wrap all of her suggestions.

“Did the calendar enjoy your carols as much as we did?” Luna asks, picking out some holly berries and holding them up to her ears, examining her reflection in a nearby window. 

Harry nods, accepting an armload of flowers and paying for them. 

“It’s good that we were right, then,” Luna muses. “It really did want you doing things with someone you love.”

It’s the second time in a day that someone’s used the “L” word with Harry and he chokes on it a little.

“Why would you say that?” he manages, clearing his throat.

“Festival magic is very familial,” Luna says. “I think it’s nice that it recognises how you feel about Draco.”

“How I—”

“And it’s nice for Draco, because he has trouble trusting how people feel about him.”

That brings Harry up short. “What do you mean?”

“After the War, I wanted to make contact with him. To thank him, because he was very kind to me, when I was at his house.”

Harry’s always amazed by the matter-of-fact way Luna describes her imprisonment, as if it wasn’t something terrible. Something difficult to recover from. 

“And so I started writing to him. I even visited him a few times in Germany. It took a very long time for him to forgive himself; even longer for him to believe that others forgave him too.”

Harry’s eyes prickle a little and he blinks them rapidly. Luna seems not to notice.

“Anyway,” she concludes as they reach the front door of her store again. “He can’t argue with an heirloom from his family line.”

Harry hugs her tightly with one arm, trying not to squash the flowers. “Thank you,” he whispers fiercely against her hair.

“You’re welcome, Harry. They’re just flowers.” She laughs gently. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

“The calendar wants me to give to charity, so I thought I’d take some toys to the orphanage in Hogsmeade.”

“Wonderful,” she enthuses. “Take Ginny, she’s at ‘Wheezes and bored out of her mind because there’s too much snow for her to fly.”

Harry returns to Grimmauld through Luna’s Floo and gives the flowers to a reluctantly-impressed Kreacher, and then goes straight back to George’s store. Sure enough, Ginny is sitting behind the counter, snacking on Sugar Hexes and kicking her heels against a cabinet. The queue of frazzled shoppers waiting at the till suggests she’s not exactly lifting her weight in helping out. 

“Harry!” she calls, tossing a Sugar Hex in his direction. He catches it and eats it. “Come to sing for us?”

He would make a rude gesture at her but he’s surrounded by the general public and it will inevitably wind up on the front page of the _Prophet_.

“Help me buy some things to take to the orphanage,” he says, instead. “Make yourself useful.”

Ginny gives him a theatrical sigh, but happily grabs a basket and steers him around the store, loading it with the latest and greatest from George’s catalogue.

When they get there Hogsmeade is covered in snow and looks like a fairy-tale. It reminds Harry of some of his very good memories of coming when he was at school. The staff at Nymphadora House are delighted to see them both, but the children who live there are far more awed by the arrival of the star chaser for the Harpies than anything Harry’s ever achieved. Harry and Ginny stack their gifts under the tree, play several dozen games of Exploding Snap, and leave with bags of homemade Christmas decorations. 

“Why didn’t you bring Malfoy?” Ginny asks, as they head back out onto High Street.

“Calendar only had one person in the picture today.”

“You brought me,” she points out.

Harry thinks about trying to explain everything that’s going on, and can’t. 

“You’ll work it out, you know,” she says, reassuringly. “The prickliest ones are the most worth it. Just ask Luna.”

Harry laughs out loud. He tries to convince her to have a pint at the Broomsticks before they use the Floo, but she says she’s promised to take Luna out for dinner and leaves him to it. Harry decides to have a drink anyway, settling at the bar and ordering a firewhisky.

“Managing to stay on your feet, Potter?” a voice asks beside him.

Harry turns to find Pansy Parkinson, stacking still more shopping bags beside her stool and ordering a glass of red wine.

He flushes, thinking about their last encounter and her parting words.

“Managing to spend all of Zabini’s Galleons?” he retorts, taking another slug of his drink.

“ _Touché_ ,” she laughs. “Blaise knew what he was getting in to. Do _you_ , I wonder?”

“What do you mean?” he sighs, not really in the mood for Parkinson’s cryptic nonsense.

“Just be careful with Draco, Potter. If you hurt him, my betraying you to the Dark Lord will pale in comparison to what happens next.”

Harry doesn’t really know _what_ to say to that.

“Malfoy’s not _fragile_ ,” he manages after a minute.

Parkinson glares at him over her wine glass. “Parts of him are,” she says, finally. “It’s always been you, with him. Don’t take it lightly.”

Harry knocks back the last of his firewhisky and gets to his feet. 

“A pleasure, as always,” he lies, patting Parkinson on the arm and tossing some Galleons on the bar. The absolute last thing he needs is to let her see all of the complicated emotions that are no doubt dancing across his face.

When he gets home, the calendar is glowing happily on the wall. Harry is torn between wanting to take it down and shove it in a box back in the attic, and being absurdly grateful that it’s somehow brought him to this point. He stares at the tiny doors—twenty-two of them now, lit brilliantly in tiny rows—and suddenly knows exactly what he needs to do next.

* * *

Prompt Twenty-two:


	23. December 23rd

Monday is the last working day for most Ministry staff—a skeleton crew of Aurors will work over the break—and the whole place has a bit of a last-day-of-school air about it as desks are cleared and spirits are high. Most people are just clock-watching until the final Christmas function at five.

“It’s _where_?” Harry sighs.

“A skating rink. They’ve constructed it in that cobbled square behind Gringotts. Honestly, Harry, did you not read any of the invitations?” Padma looks up from the pile of case files she’s tidying away. “Didn’t you want to go skating the other day? Now’s your chance.”

Harry doesn’t think there’s much use in pointing out he’s _been_ skating, three times, with only marginal success. He only ever really puts in an appearance at the Ministry drinks, so he figures he can stay on dry land at this one.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he says, straightening his jacket and thinking about what he needs to say. “I just need to see Robards.”

“Everything alright?” Padma asks, levitating a stack of evidence envelopes into a box.

“Hopefully,” Harry says, as he disappears out the door. 

His meeting takes less time than he fears, though it leaves him a bit clammy with anxious sweat, and he’s glad for the chance to spend his final afternoon chasing down another lead in Shropshire. He’s even more delighted when Padma makes a last-minute breakthrough and they find their missing witch suffering under a badly-cast Obliviate, working as the receptionist for a Muggle taxi company with no idea where she’s meant to be.

“ _Rowena_ , that’s satisfying,” Padma says, when they see the young woman safely checked into St Mungo’s. “Now we’ve earned a mulled wine.”

Harry nods absently. His nervous energy has returned in spades.

“You alright, Harry?” she asks. “We’re done for the year. All that’s left is for you to drink too much firewhisky and moon at me about how _tall_ Malfoy is, the way you did at the summer barbecue.”

She means it as a joke, grinning broadly at him, but it makes Harry feel even worse. That was six months’ ago. _How long has everyone known?_

“Merlin, I’m sorry,” Padma rushes on, taking in his expression. “I thought—”

“It’s okay,” Harry cuts her off. “Or it will be. I think.” _Hopefully_.

Padma still looks worried that she’s offended him.

“Come on,” he says, grabbing her arm with a smile as they head to the Floos. “Let’s get cleaned up and get a drink.”

The Ministry party looks pretty magnificent, even if Harry’s very tired of ice-skating. The rink is charmed with purple light that seems to come from within the ice itself, and all of the trees that line the square are wrapped with tiny lights dancing like fireflies. Musicians play carols on a low podium at one end, and catering elfs move through the crowd with trays of Christmas cocktails.

Harry sees Sato first. She looks like a completely different person out of uniform, with her hair down and a sparkling antler headband in her hair. He’s about to go looking for Draco when he hears his own name. Robards and the Minister himself are standing together looking out over the ice, and seem not to have noticed him.

“Auror Potter’s had quite an end to the year, I hear,” Kingsley says.

_All Padma’s doing_ , Harry thinks, reaching for a glass of champagne as it goes past on a tray. 

“And congratulations to be offered on the personal front as well,” says Robards, giving Kingsley a horrifying wink. “If the number of questions Potter had for me this morning about the Force’s policy on interpersonal relationships is anything to go by.”

Harry’s about to step in and cut them off, before the conversation becomes even more mortifying, but he glances up and finds he’s not the only one who has overheard them, and the other bystander is the only person more aghast than he is—Draco Malfoy. 

Harry opens his mouth to explain himself, but Draco has already levelled him with an expression of absolute betrayal and disappeared into the crowd.

“Wait!” Harry cries, rushing after him and nearly taking out an elf and an entire tray of bottles with sparklers flaring in them in the process. He glimpses flashes of Malfoy’s blond hair as he pushes past well-wishers, performers dressed like Christmas fairies, and an entire team of mediwizards in matching hats who want to try and get him to join in on a chorus of _Santa Claus is Coming to Town_.

Harry finally gets free of the crowd and catches up to Draco just as he’s about to leave the party altogether.

“Wait!” Harry pants, grabbing at his arm. “Let me explain….”

Draco snatches his wrist out of Harry’s grip. His expression is cold. “I don’t think there’s anything to explain. Despite my being extremely clear with you about my concerns….” He trails off and rubs at his eyes. “I’m sorry, you _asked the Department_ if it was ok to date me?!”

Draco looks more exasperated than Harry’s ever seen him. More exasperated even than when Harry suggested using _Bombarda_ on those curse-locked doors.

“Date _someone_ ,” Harry hastily clarifies. “I absolutely, one hundred percent, did _not_ use your name.”

Draco opens his mouth and closes it again. He folds his arms defensively, but at least he’s not still trying to leave. Harry thinks he can work with that.

“Look, I know that you’re worried I’m not serious. Or even if I am that it’s not worth it, because it’ll ruin everything you’ve done here. Everything you’ve achieved. And I want you to know I _am_ serious. That blasted calendar proves it. It was only interested when I was doing things with someone I cared about. But I don’t want either of our jobs to be on the line, or for us to be sneaking around snogging in broom closets. I want this to be … official.”

One of Draco’s eyebrows shoots up. “Official?!”

“Look, I'm not saying we need to start a gift register somewhere, but. I mean it, Draco. I really want us to try.”

Harry lets out a defeated sort of breath. He’s not sure what else he can say to convince him.

Draco tilts his head slightly. “You really asked for permission.”

Harry shrugs. “To be honest, I thought it might have been harder than it was, really. Robards said as long as we were the same rank it was fine. Which is just as well, probably. Hermione had about thirteen legal arguments ready to go if he’d said ‘no’.”

Draco unfolds his arms. “You asked Hermione about this?” His tone is gentler, if still a little incredulous.

“Last night,” Harry nods. “I mean, it turns out I wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. You were wrong about my friends and family, as it happens. Seems like they’ve all just been waiting for me to catch on.”

“I….” Draco seems at a loss for words. “I mean, that’s all very well and good. But when you actually tell Robards _who_ it is you want to start seeing, I think his tone will change.” 

Harry’s about to launch into an impassioned defence of his colleagues, and all the many, many complimentary things they have to say about Draco literally all of the time, but he gets cut off by a booming voice behind him.

“There you two are,” Robards announces, giving off a cloud of firewhisky fumes as he claps Harry on the back. Draco seems to get impossibly paler. 

“Look,” Robards barrels on, oblivious. “Just because I’ve given you my official blessing, doesn’t mean you get to sneak off early. You’re both up for promotions next year, you need to be seen to be doing your bit.” Then he gives them both one of those awful, lopsided winks with an enormous grin.

This time it’s not just Draco’s ears that go pink but his cheeks as well. Harry’s never seen anything like it. He looks absolutely adorable and Harry very much wants to kiss him, but supposes now is neither the time nor the place.

“Yes, sir,” he manages instead. 

“Come on then,” Robards enthuses, looping an arm around each of them and steering them back into the noisy crowd. He deposits them near the bar and surges off to join the carolling mediwizards. 

“I guess you were right,” Harry says, passing a glass of champagne to Draco and taking one for himself. “I guess literally everyone _did_ know how I felt about you.”

Unbelievably, Draco’s blush only deepens. “How long do you think we need to stay here?” he asks, and his gaze is so heated Harry would happily Side-Along them home right now, but he still has Robards’ words ringing in his ears. 

“Two drinks, and two circuits of the party?” he bargains, and Draco nods, clinking his glass against Harry’s before disappearing into the crowd.

It’s the longest hour of Harry’s life, but he makes the effort to seek out all the members of his team and thank them for their efforts. He wishes Kingsley well, and gives Padma the badly-wrapped gift he’s had shrunken in his pocket all day, and he manages to give Robards a wide berth. Finally, he’s back at the bar and Draco’s waiting for him.

Harry can’t help the ridiculous smile on his face. 

“Let’s go to Grimmauld,” he says quickly. “I haven’t opened the door for today, and I don’t want the calendar to backslide.”

Draco looks like he’s about to start in on a tedious explanation for why ancient festival magic doesn’t involve backsliding, so Harry Apparates them both before he can.

“Quite the change,” Draco whistles, looking around at the decorations and the roaring fire. “It’s like a completely different house.”

Harry realises he’s right, not least because finally he’s no longer here on his own.

Draco reaches up and opens the twenty-third door. Behind it the picture shows a couple toasting marshmallows.

“Positively straightforward,” Draco says, calling for Kreacher. The little elf seems beside himself with happiness to see him. Or at least that’s what Harry assumes the slightly twisted expression on his face that might be a smile signifies. He disappears immediately and returns with a bowl of fluffy pink and white marshmallows and a pair of long wooden skewers.

“Thank you, Kreacher,” Draco says politely, and Harry swears the wizened little elf is blushing as he leaves.

Harry crouches beside the hearth, turning his skewer carefully as it browns. Draco, unbelievably, just shoves his marshmallow into an open flame until it catches fire, blowing it out and leaving a blackened and melting carcass on the end of his skewer.

Harry bursts out laughing.

“What is it?” Malfoy asks, licking melted marshmallow off his finger in a way that almost has Harry losing his train of thought.

“Nothing,” he chuckles, eating his own off the end of his stick. “It’s just you cast the most precise magic I’ve ever seen, but you haven’t the patience to wait an extra couple of minutes not to burn a marshmallow.”

“Tastes better this way,” Draco counters, and Harry decides to kiss him rather than argue. It’s a kiss tinged with burnt sugar and champagne and the possibility of a future Harry hadn’t let himself imagine even a few short weeks ago. Harry concedes Draco’s right: it does taste pretty good.

Above them, the calendar lights burn bright.

* * *

Prompt Twenty-Three:


	24. December 24th

Harry wakes on Christmas Eve warm, rested, happy, and alone.

He certainly tried to convince Draco that an evening of marshmallows and making out was only a precursor to a great deal more fun they _could_ be having, but Draco was adamant.

“If you’re serious about this,” he said, kissing Harry again as he fastened his coat, “then there’s no reason to rush.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Harry insisted. “We’re having drinks at the Lion. Ron said you should come.”

Draco made a strange sort of noise in the back of his throat that Harry suspected had less to do with the invitation, and more to do with his continued disbelief that any of Harry’s friends could genuinely be asking.

“I can’t. I’ve already said I’ll catch up with Pansy and Blaise.”

“So bring them,” Harry managed to sound more enthusiastic about that idea than he probably really felt. “Parkinson has already warned fates worse than death if I stuff this up. She might as well see I’m genuine.”

“You want to spend your Christmas Eve experimenting with whether our friends get along?” Draco laughed, looping his scarf around his neck. Harry hated how the layers of clothes were going on, and not coming off.

“I want to spend my Christmas Eve with you, Slytherin baggage and all.”

“I’ll tell Pans you called her a baggage,” Draco smirked, and disappeared through the Floo.

Harry had put the marshmallows away and then spent a long few minutes watching the fire burn down, the calendar twinkling happily on the wall.

This morning, Harry feels positively overflowing with Christmas spirit. Grimmauld Place is practically glowing: laden with decorations and ready to welcome the family the following day. He’s even pretty sure he hears Kreacher whistling, but he stops long before Harry gets to the kitchen. 

And the kitchen! The kitchen is an absolute marvel. Pots of gravy bubbly happily on the stove and vegetables are chopping into neat and orderly rows and then sorting themselves into roasting pans. Harry’s never understood the house-elf’s kitchen magic, but it’s a sight to behold.

Kreacher cranes around Harry, clearly looking for Draco, which just gives Harry an opportunity to snag a mince pie. It’s not like Kreacher’s going to make him breakfast.

“He’s not here,” he says, around a mouthful of warm pastry and fruit. Kreacher glares at him. 

“But he’s coming back,” Harry reassures him. “Often, I hope.”

Kreacher seems somewhat appeased, but still swipes the tray of pies out of Harry’s reach.

Harry goes to the sitting room and opens the twenty-fourth door. The picture is of a group of champagne flutes being clinked together in a toast. It’s such an easy one to complete, he’s almost disappointed. It would have been nice to have had one final, Herculean task to insist Draco help him complete. But it’s as if the calendar knows the hard work is behind them, which is nice, in a way.

Well, _most_ of the hard work. Harry doesn’t imagine dating Draco Malfoy is going to be exactly _easy_.

He spends a few hours putting the finishing touches on his Christmas surprise for Rose and then Floos to the Lion. 

Ron is dressed as Santa, with an ornate white beard covering his own and a rotund stomach that makes him look a little like the time Harry inflated his aunt as a child. Rose is dressed as a Christmas fairy, with silvery wings pinned to her back, and is helping him stack presents under the pub tree. 

“Are these all for you, Rosie?” Harry asks teasingly. 

“ _No_ , Harry,” Rose is indignant. “These are for the orphanage. We are taking them tomorrow before we come to your house!”

“Well, maybe Santa will leave you a couple overnight.” 

Rose leans in to whisper in Harry’s ear. “Not everyone knows this, but I’m old enough now and so you definitely are too: _Santa isn’t real_.”

To be honest, Harry wouldn’t have been at all surprised to learn that Santa _was_ in fact a Norwegian wizard or part of a long and venerable tradition involving enchanted reindeer or similar. Somehow it’s comforting that he still has most of a handle on the Christmas story. 

“Well, then,” he says conspiratorially. “We better make sure Hugo doesn’t find out for a few years yet.” Hugo is currently perched on Hermione’s knee sucking on a beer coaster so there doesn’t seem much danger of that. 

Luna and Ginny arrive a short time later. Ginny’s nod to the festive season is a green Holyhead training jersey with some red berries pinned around the neck. Luna, on the other hand, looks like a Christmas centerpiece. The holly earrings she’d fashioned while helping Harry pick flowers, crown a silver dress that shimmers like tinsel, strung with tiny ornaments and jangling with little bells. 

“Well?” Ginny asks Harry, without preamble. 

He glances up to find everyone looking at him, except Rose, who has disappeared behind the tree chasing an errant decoration. 

“Well what?” Harry snorts. 

“Did you appease the calendar, win the heart of the fair maiden, et cetera?”

Hermione laughs out loud, muttering “ _maiden_ ” under her breath. 

“Well, Draco is very fair,” Luna counters.

“Yes, thank you,” Harry waves a hand to cut them off. “I appreciate all your advice, albeit somewhat belated.”

“Not our fault you’re a bit slow, mate,” Ron says, tugging at his stupid beard and rubbing at his fake belly. Harry gives him the fingers.

“Anyway,” Harry goes on, steeling himself for further mockery. “Yes, Draco will be joining us this evening.”

Ron wolf whistles at him, and Luna gives him a tight hug. Ginny just grins over her pint glass. 

Behind him, the Floo roars again, and he turns to find Neville emerging, dusting snow off his shoulders.

“You alright, Harry?” he asks with a smile. “Broken that curse yet?”

“It’s not a curse,” Harry mumbles with a resigned sigh, and heads to the bar for another round.

The pub is crowded and warm, filled with witches and wizards having a final catch-up before the holiday festivities begin. Harry keeps glancing at the Floo like a nervous tic, until finally it’s Zabini and Parkinson stepping through, Draco right on their heels.

Even having seen him less than twenty-four hours ago, he still takes Harry’s breath away. 

“Potter,” Zabini says, offering a wry grin and a hand to shake. “Good of you to finally get your head out of your arse.” 

Draco elbows his friend in the ribs. 

“Ignore them. I told them not to come but they literally never listen.” Draco looks...not uncomfortable exactly, but _nervous_ , Harry realises. It makes him feel better about the very unusual butterfly situation going on in his own stomach.

“Rude,” Parkinson retorts. “We were invited, you said so yourself. Can’t just retract it unilaterally because you don’t want us making fun of your _boyfriend_. A martini, Blaise dear, if you can find someone back there who knows how to make one.”

Ron waddles up out of nowhere. “Seven different gins behind that bar and a boutique vermouth from a distillery in France I guarantee you’ve never tried,” he challenges Parkinson, a twinkle in his eye.

She looks over his ridiculous outfit, glances at Harry, rolls her eyes at Draco, and then waves her arm toward the bar. “Lead the way Mixology Santa, let’s see what you’re made of.”

Which is how Harry finds himself gathered with his friends and Draco’s around two small round tables, packets of crisps open between them, a bottle of champagne chilling in an icebucket, and Draco’s leg pressed against his own. He’s not sure he’s ever been happier.

He raises his glass.

“Christmas was always a bit of a weird one for me, when I was young. And since the War,” he says it without flinching. Draco’s wrong about that—Harry knows exactly who he is, and who he was, and is absolutely mad for him still. “Since the War, it’s taken us time to build back to where we have plenty of things to celebrate. Family being together,” he nods at Ginny and Luna. “Children joining us,” he pokes his tongue out at Rose where she’s perched on a fat stool near the fire and she giggles. “And I reckon, for me, this holiday is genuinely the best one yet. Merry Christmas.”

Harry reaches for Draco’s hand under the table, as everyone clinks their glasses together, just like the picture in the calendar.

Draco laces their fingers together and gives a gentle squeeze back.

* * *

Prompt Twenty-Four:


	25. December 25th

On Christmas Day, Harry wakes warm, rested, happy, and definitely not alone. 

He stretches—his toes skating down Draco’s calves—not wanting to disturb him but also very much wanting to wake him up immediately so they can carry on from last night. 

“Urgh,” groans Draco, smushing his face into the pillow. “It’s Christmas Day, leave me alone.” 

“Merry Christmas.” Harry slides an arm around his waist and kisses the back of his neck. 

“Don’t start anything you can’t finish,” Draco warns as he turns in Harry’s arms. 

“Who says I can’t finish?” 

“The fact that it’s already light outside and you have fourteen people coming for lunch?” 

Harry glances at the clock and flinches. 

Draco laughs. “Sorry to pour cold water on a promising situation, but—“

“But there’s no time!” Harry groans, starting to panic about the whole day. 

Draco leans in and kisses him softly. “It’s going to be fine. I know your Weasleys love their Christmases, but you’re ready. The house looks beautiful. Kreacher has made enough food to feed all of Hogwarts twice over.”

“You have to stay,” Harry pleads. “Without you here the calendar might rebel. Decorations will rain down from the walls and Kreacher’s fruit pies will turn out to have tripe in them.” 

“You know it doesn’t work that way,” Draco chuckles, extracting himself from Harry’s embrace despite protests and sliding from the sheets. “And you know I have to go to my mother’s.” 

Harry did know that, because they'd had a very protracted debate about whether Draco could, in fact, stay the night before Christmas, which had involved a lot of frankly very embarrassing wheedling on Harry’s part, until Ron tired of the whole thing and pushed them both through the Floo. 

He watches Draco dress, a sight he thinks he could easily get used to, until he catches sight of the time again. 

“ _Merlin_ ,” he curses, scrambling from his bed. 

Downstairs, Kreacher is definitely humming, which Harry suspects has rather a lot to do with Draco’s boots standing neat and shiny by the front door. 

Harry looks around the house as if truly seeing it for the first time. It really is amazing. Between the antique Black family decorations, the ones made and given to him by the children at the orphanage, his cheap Muggle acquisitions, the glasses from the pub and Rose’s popcorn garlands, the whole effect is magnificently, uniquely Harry. It feels like _his_ home, and it feels like _his_ Christmas. 

He opens the final door on the advent calendar. It shows a table laden with Christmas food and surrounded by people. The culmination of his contract with the calendar is going to be what he wanted all along. He smiles. 

“Told you you were ready,” Draco says behind him. He kisses Harry on the cheek. “I have to go.” 

“Come back? Later, after your time at home.” 

Draco looks at him, a sort of wondering expression on his face. “You really do want this. It isn’t just a Christmas fancy.”

“ _You’re_ a Christmas fancy,” Harry grumbles nonsensically and kisses Draco all over his stupid face until he shoves him off laughing and steps through the Floo.

Harry rushes to shower and dress, and it seems like minutes later the Floo is roaring again, filling the house with the sound of laughter and carols and his family.

Rose is absolutely over the moon when Harry takes her out to the back garden and shows her the path he’s charmed through the grass to the stout little treehouse in the bowers of the old oak. 

“It has lights, Harry!” she squeals, as she points to where a few of the Grimmauld Place orbs have floated over from the eaves of the old house to settle on the roof of her new one.

“Might need a few more decorations though,” he says solemnly. “I’m sure you can make some after lunch.

Molly looks flushed with pride as she gives Harry an enormous hug. 

“It’s absolutely lovely to be here, dear,” she says. “It all looks wonderful.”

Harry thanks her, flustered as always by her praise and her boundless affection for him.

“And where is your young man?” Molly has a twinkle in her eye that looks positively mischievous. Harry feels his face heat.

“He might join us later,” he manages, as he herds everyone into the dining room for lunch.

The food is marvellous—Kreacher really has excelled himself—and before long Harry is pushing back his chair and wishing he could unfasten the button on his trousers. Everyone compliments the grouchy little elf, who bats away the praise with decreasing ferocity as the afternoon wears on.

Eventually, Harry helps Molly on with her coat and loads everyone down with boxes of leftovers and then he’s finally on his own, sitting on the couch with a well-earned glass of firewhisky.

The Floo in the kitchen roars again. 

“What did you forget?” he calls out.

“All the many, many reasons it’s a terrible idea to date you,” Draco says, leaning smirking in the doorway. He’s still in his smart clothes—Harry imagines Narcissa has a fairly formal Christmas table—but his waistcoat is undone and his sleeves are rolled up and Harry wants to immediately muss him up even further. 

“How did it go?” Draco asks.

Harry points at the calendar, where the lights have all dimmed to a happy, gentle glow. He wonders whether tomorrow they’ll have extinguished themselves, ready to be packed away for another year.

“Do you think it will give us the same tasks to do next Christmas, or new ones?” he asks, getting up and crowding Draco against the door, hands on his waist.

“Presumptuous,” Draco chuckles. “How do you know I won’t be helping some other bloke with a cursed advent calendar next year?”

“ _It’s not a curse_ ,” Harry whispers conspiratorially. Draco bursts out laughing.

“As long as at least one task stays the same,” Harry adds.

“You better not mean the ice-skating.”

Harry points above them, where the bunch of mistletoe is still pinned above the door. 

Draco rolls his eyes, but he comes easily into Harry’s arms, and kisses him as if all of his Christmases have come at once.

* * *

Prompt Twenty-Five:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for coming with me on this journey over the last twenty five days. It's been such a delight to get your comments on the way through cheering me on to the end. Thank you also to the organisers, particularly sassy-cissa who found all the awesome prompts. And I couldn't have done this without inveigler81 and diligent-thunder, who read every word and gave me the best ideas.
> 
> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and to those who don't I hope you have a wonderful and peaceful holiday. Come hang out on [tumblr](harryromper.tumblr.com) and say hi.


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